Fertility treatments and medications will be free of charge from February 1st, Viktor Orbán told journalists during his annual international press conference on Thursday.
Regarding the purchase of the six private fertility treatment centers, the prime minister emphasized that legally speaking, the acquisition wasn’t a nationalization – the state bought all the companies on the market.
“We didn’t appropriate them from the owners, we made an offer, negotiated, and bought them,” Orbán said.
According to the Hungarian premier, the government made the acquisition for two reasons.
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For one, the facilities had been purchased by the state for the sake of transparency. It is important as to what happens to the fertilized but unused eggs, Orbán said.
“We are a pro-life government; we’d like to know what happens in these cases,” he emphasized. The government can only see clearly and can take responsibility from a bioethical standpoint if it has a full view of the program.
The other reason is that the government wants to make the treatments free.
Orbán also talked about some of the misunderstandings around the subsidization of the medication. Previously, the Ministry of Human Resources announced that from January 1st, the medication used during fertility treatments would be free of charge. Then some people were disappointed to find out in early January that that was not the case. Later, the ministry made a correction, marking July 1st as the start date.
Orbán pointed out that fertility treatment and medicine are already 90% subsidized but the confusing situation needed to be sorted out, hence they made a change.
The remaining 10% will be covered by February 1st, so from then on, treatment and medicine will be completely free of charge. The treatment of infertility will be moved away from a business perspective in the future, he said.
The licensing of fertility treatment has already been subject to state authorization, and no new licenses will be issued in the future, Orbán said, advising private investors to look for other areas to put money into.
Featured photo via Pixabay/smpratt90