The government is weighing the feasibility of subsidizing in-vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment in an effort to slow the continuing decline in the birth rate, according to a Department of Health (DOH) official.
If the subsidy program is adopted and offered to infertile couples, the official said, the number of newborns could increase by an estimated 1,000 to 2,000 a year.
Chao Kun-yu (趙坤郁), deputy director-general of the Bureau of Health Promotion, said that the bureau has drafted two potential IVF subsidy programs for the reference of the Ministry of the Interior’s Population Policy Committee.
One of the proposals requires the government to offer each infertile couple NT$50,000 (US$1600) in IVF subsidies per year, while the other calls for an annual subsidy of NT$150,000, Chao said.
“The first option would cost the national coffers about NT$600 million per year, and the needed outlay would spike at NT$2.2 billion if the second option were to be adopted,” Chao said.
According to DOH statistics, more than 6,000 married couples receive IVF treatment each year, with some receiving multiple treatments in a single year, Chao said.
The bureau estimates that the number of IVF treatments would increase by 50 percent if the government were to subsidize each couple by NT$50,000 a year and could double if the subsidy was raised to NT$150,000.
IVF, which costs between NT$150,000 and NT$250,000 per treatment, is not covered by the national health insurance program.
According to Chao, the ministry asked the bureau to assess the efficacy of subsidizing IVF treatment after Tseng Chi-jui (曾啟瑞), dean of Taipei Medical University’s College of Medicine, suggested the proposal recently.
Tseng, an expert in reproductive medicine, said the government’s plan to offer child-rearing subsidies for third and subsequent children under two years of age would be less effective in -encouraging people to have more children than offering IVF subsidies.
“The government should follow the lead of Japan, South Korea and Singapore and subsidize IVF, which would be far more effective in raising our country’s birth rate,” Tseng wrote recently in an article carried in the local media.
Bureau Director--General Chiu Shu-ti (邱淑媞) echoed Tseng’s view on Saturday, saying that the ministry-proposed incentives to encourage married couples to have second or third children are ineffective because most couples only want one child.
Chiu said she looks forward to an early launch of the subsidy program to help promote child birth.
The nation’s fertility rate — the average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime — has steadily declined since reaching 1.6 in 2001. It hit a low of 1.03 last year, the world’s second lowest, higher only than that of Germany.
A biennial demographic assessment released by the Council for Economic Planning and Development in August said that the country’s fertility rate could drop further to an estimated 0.94 this year because of the traditional superstition that the Year of the Tiger is not a good time to have a child.
Taiwan has also lagged behind other major Asian countries in terms of its birth rate — the average annual number of births during a year per 1,000 persons in the population.
According to the latest council estimate, population growth in Taiwan will reach zero in 2022, four years earlier than previously forecasts have suggested.
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