The actual cost of one cycle of IVF to the NHS has been confirmed many times by NHS officials as between £500 and £800 (varies because what's actually done varies; is low because IVF doesn't require overnight in hospital). Most infertility treatment, of course, starts with drugs like clomiphene, which costs pennies per month.
Adoption is not a panacea because it is for all practical intents and purposes virtually impossible in the UK -- and I speak as one who has children from both IVF and adoption. There are very few healthy babies available for adoption, and overseas adoption is effectively made illegal by Home Office barriers to passports. And by the way, your adopting in this country will cost far more to the public purse than IVF owing to the need to involve social services at endless length.
I do think we need to have a public debate about what the NHS and the state should and shouldn't be funding. Some points to raise: cost, effectiveness, years of life benefitted, whether the problem is a result of a medical disorder, whether it is self-inflicted, whether it is cosmetic. On all those grounds IVF for infertility would of course be covered, as I'm sure even those of you who like to say "children are a lifestyle choice" would agree they're not on a par with a nose job.
But I look at my family lately and realise it's no wonder the NHS is in trouble. Here's our picture: three children, two by (privately funded) IVF, one adopted. One of the two biological children has significant SN and requires extra school funding and specialist medicine. One of the children last year broke her arm playing and cost the NHS surgery, an overnight in hospital, four casts over six months, and weekly checks at the clinic including x-rays for all of those six months. (Which, trust me, cost a LOT more than IVF, or delivery.) We also have a 98-year-old great-aunt who broke her hip two months ago, is according to the doctors themselves never going to leave hospital alive, is begging to be allowed to go home to die, but for lack of an Advance Directive or any children is going to remain in hospital as long as it takes her to die, with antibiotics for two rounds of pneumonia and kidney infection so far.
Did I hear someone use that nasty Daily Torygraph term, "bed-blocker"? Then get this: I also have a MIL with dementia. She's currently back in hospital, despite having no other medical issues, because her DH has been arrested for elder abuse for slapping her when he couldn't get her to believe their house was where she lived: social services tell us it could be months before a care home bed becomes available, and meantime the hospital has to house her.
Since I am the main carer for ALL of these people, I am now receiving anti-depressants and counselling through the NHS. Part of the reason I feel so dreadful is that I look around me and see so many people so much worse off both financially and medically, yet we're the ones who seem to be slowly bankrupting the NHS.
Honestly, I think the IVF is the least of our problems. But on the bright side, I haven't cost the NHS birth control for YEARS. 