The Success Models of Financing the Artificial Reproductive Techniques and the Albanian Case

Abstract

The development of the artificial reproduction techniques (ART) is obviously one of the biggest achievements of medicine of the XX Century accompanied by many ethical, moral, social and economic disputes. Even if its applicability makes the dream true for many couples, the high costs of the (ART) makes it realizable only for a few of them, fearing so to create another limitation on the access of these techniques. While aiming at the realization of the reproductive health of their citizens, states are still confused on whether to include (ART) in the health care policies and fund it fully or partially or to leave the cost of its implementation to the individual. Success cases of different European countries will be analyzed in this paper where the (ART) are fully or partially funded by the health care scheme. The reproductive health service in Albania is provided by law as a funded service, but until now (ART) is offered only by private clinics and although its cost is lower than that of European countries, it still remains high compared to the personal income. Having in consideration the success cases of European countries, this paper will try to analyze if there is the possibility in the Albanian legislation of financing the artificial reproduction techniques by the national health insurance fund.