End this now

Calls for restrictions on Medicare access to IVF subsidies for older women: A decade after the IVF industry defeated the federal government's attempt to restrict Medicare access to older women, the president of its peak body has says there is little taxpayer value in subsidising the treatment after a woman turns 45.

Statistics on fertility treatment outcomes released on Friday show that 73,598 women started IVF cycles in 2014, the most recent year for which statistics are available, and one in five of them (19.8 per cent) delivered a live baby.

This represented a 10 per cent improvement in the live birth rate
over five years, which has been attributed to better freezing
technology.

But the success rate dwindled to 6 per cent for women aged 40 to 44, and less than 1 per cent for women aged over 45.

If our current Coalition government cannot push this saving measure through now, they're good for nothing.