Thursday, March 4, 2010

IVF Cost Plummets! ...A bit...

If you live in the United Kingdom, In Vitro Fertilization aka IVF cost just got a little more affordable.


According to this article the supermarket Asda will be selling IVF drugs at cost price, saving couples who are paying out of pocket hundreds of pounds per each IVF cycle. 
"Asda Pharmacy will charge £1,171.41 for drugs to accompany one IVF cycle, a saving up to £820 compared with other high street pharmacies, it claims."
If you're in the USA, this translates to a drugs for IVF cost of about $1,700, with a savings of around $1,240.  Thats a lot of money!  But when a single complete round of treatment of IVF cost at least $10,000... Well, I guess IVF is still a pretty serious monetary commitment. But every bit counts, right?


In any case, it is nice to see a large pharmacy taking an interest in helping consumers afford medication. This is a better (though possibly short term) alternative to having taxpayers pay to keep IVF cost down, like is up for debate in Canada right now.  


With the IVF cost so high, are we left with only these three options: make individual couples pay out of pocket, ask tax payers to subsidize costs, or hope for the charity of big pharmaceutical companies?  These all seem like pretty grim options, lets hope some better alternatives present themselves!

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