Cash for kidneys? Lawmaker wants you to be able to ‘sell’ your organs

[Cirque du So-What]

Source: Fox 8 Cleveland

WASHINGTON, D.C. — If Pennsylvania Congressman Matt Cartwright gets his way, you’ll soon be able to be compensated for donating a kidney.

Cartwright, who is a Democrat, will introduce legislation this week to allow for the creation of a five-year, government-run pilot program to test the effectiveness of offering non-cash rewards to kidney donors, The Daily Beast reported.

Those rewards could include health insurance, tax credits, charitable donations, or tuition reimbursement.

According to WBT, there are more than 100,000 Americans waiting for a new kidney. As many as 12 people die each day because there are not enough donors.

Read more: http://fox8.com/2016/05/23/cash-for-kidneys-lawmakers-wants-you-to-be-able-to-sell-your-organs/

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Links embedded in text from above:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/05/11/congress-wants-you-to-be-able-to-sell-your-organs.html

http://wbt.com/new-program-offers-cash-incentives-for-kidney-donations/

https://www.kidney.org/news/newsroom/positionpaper03

[valerief]

1. Third world livin' anyone? If anyone thought we were headed for the first world, they were

quite mistaken.

[Cirque du So-What]

3. What could possibly go wrong?

It's not like there'd be any pressure to go under the knife in order to settle student debt or anything like that.

[thesquanderer]

7. Yes. This is where the "idealism" of libertarianism goes awry. (n/t)

[redstatebluegirl]

2. Now the middle class and poor who cannot afford to "buy one" will die.

All of the organs, especially kidneys, will go to the highest bidder, the wealthy will get saved and the poor and middle class will die unless a family member has a match. So wrong.

[LeftyMom]

32. That already happens, unofficially.

People with more money can move to a region with a shorter list, put themselves on several lists, or go overseas to one of the countries where there are plenty of organs if you don't ask a lot of questions.

And of course the transplant center won't even put you on the schedule without gold plated insurance, because some of the anti-rejection medications are outrageously expensive and you won't know before the transplant if you're going to need one of those in your anti-rejection regimen.

[dixiegrrrrl]

39. I am reminded of how fast Cheney got his heart....n/t

[Feeling the Bern]

4. get out of debt. . .mutilate yourself.

[NV Whino]

6. Harvard tuition—one kidney.

[RealAmericanDem]

5. Those with lots of money can alteady buy one.

Just travel to India. This would just bring the price down so more people can afford to buy one.

[happyslug]

8. Everyone else involved is getting money, why not the donator or his or her family?

The "Selling" of Kidneys are already a big business, thus all the Congressman is doing is saying the person whose kidney every one else is making money on, should also make money.

[jtuck004]

9. You write laws that let a real estate swindler pay no taxes so your Democratic constituent have

to sell body parts to survive. More of our "Recovery" .

If and when the Democratic Party is nothing but a useless banner laying in a dirty street gutter, you might thank people like this pile o' crap.

“The most monstrous monster is the monster with noble feelings”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky

[Ohioblue22]

10. Cash for kidneys program

[hobbit709]

11. Next step: Organlegging.

[haikugal]

12. How else are the owners going to live forever? They can afford everything...

we can afford little to nothing. There are too many of us anyway, right?!

[polly7]

13. Hey, if you've got a family to feed .....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016153043

Iraqi families sell organs to overcome poverty

By Ahmed Maher
BBC Arabic, Baghdad

20 April 2016

VIDEO

Om Hussein said the thought of selling her kidney was better than living on charity

Their dilapidated house collapsed a few months ago, and they have survived thanks to the help of friends and relatives.

Her husband added: "I worked at everything you could think of. As a butcher, a day labourer, a rubbish collector. I would not ask for money, but they would give it to us. I would not ask for food.

"I would tell my son to collect waste bread from the street and we would eat it, but I never asked for food or money."

Facing such poverty, Ms Hussein was driven to make a huge sacrifice.

"I decided to sell my kidney," she said. "I could no longer provide for my family. It was better than selling my body or living on charity."

The organ trade

Grinding poverty has made the trafficking of kidneys and other organs a phenomenon in Baghdad.

Gangs, offering up to $10,000 (£7,000) for a kidney, have increasingly targeted the country's poor, making it a new hub for the organ trade across the Middle East.

Full article: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-36083800

Makes you wonder just how those (who already live on average 18 years longer because of income equality in the U.S.) could fix things with their private specialists to get hold of one of these kidneys. jmho.

[Kelvin Mace]

14. Highly misleading headline

Since it is completely contradicted by the text of the story:

Cartwright, who is a Democrat, will introduce legislation this week to allow for the creation of a five-year, government-run pilot program to test the effectiveness of offering non-cash rewards to kidney donors, The Daily Beast reported.

Those rewards could include health insurance, tax credits, charitable donations, or tuition reimbursement.

Such rewards make a lot of sense since it helps pay for future complications from the transplant and lost time/income from donating. And by the way, there ARE complications from donating that get played down, or at least not talked about much. Any extremely invasive procedure involving the removal of a critical organ is risky for the donor.

Also, if folks don't think organs are being sold now, they are fooling themselves. This program would remove the incentive to go "black market" for such things.

[Gormy Cuss]

36. Other than health insurance the list has unrelated cash-equivalent payoffs.

Compensating donors for direct costs (current and future)like medical complications and lost income is a bit different from providing incentives to donate like tuition reimbursement.

[Kelvin Mace]

37. I would hope,

that we are talking about tuition reimbursement for people who have to take time off from school to provide the donation. Tax credits I can understand since donating an organ can affect your income.

[Skeeter Barnes]

15. They don't want you to vape but they want you to sell your body parts.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

16. If the right to choose an abortion is based on the premise that a woman has control of her own body,

then why shouldn't you be able to choose to keep or to barter away your organs?

[jamzrockz]

41. Because a lot of people

Objecting to it think you are a child who can't make decision for yourself and they know better how to run your life than you. I believe if I want to sell my organ or giving away for free, it is supposed to be my choice not yours.

[Bayard]

17. Short trip

Poor people selling organs is a short step from thieves just taking them.

I donated a kidney to my Type 1 diabetic sister because I loved her. It was still going strong 30 years later (rare) until other complications, and her new doctor playing around with her anti-rejection meds, got her. My other Type 1 sister went thru a couple of cadaver kidneys. They never do as well as a family match.

I think selling organs for profit, especially because of financial hardship, is just obscene. Its exploitation. There are other ways, such as forgiving student debt, and socializing healthcare. Along with more encouragement to sign the donor card on back of your driver's license. A lot of people have just never thought about it, or have not had the process explained properly.

[Akicita]

21. I have a friend who refuses to sign the donor card because huge profits are made off deceased

donors' body parts but nothing is given to surviving family members. He wants to will his body to his survivors so they could profit too but that is not legal for some reason.

[Bayard]

22. Who profits?

The surgeons? Another argument for socialized medicine. I know our surgeries were over $100k, even 30 years ago.

[Akicita]

24. He did the research. I think he said there are companies that handle the organs from harvesting to

transplanting that make big bucks off it. And of course the hospitals and surgeons too.

[bbgrunt]

18. and this guy is a democrat?

[LovingA2andMI]

23. Likely in the HER Wing of the Democratic Party...

[LanternWaste]

29. I'd cower behind an implication if I had nothing to offer also...

I'd cower behind an implication if I had nothing to offer also...

[Helen Borg]

19. There will be an app for that.

[malthaussen]

20. Then it wouldn't be a donation, now would it?

You show me your quo, and I'll show you a few quid.

Although the bill appears to call for "non cash" compensation, which frankly makes no sense to me. If you're gonna make body parts a legal commodity, why restrict the type of compensation? Either this congressman is a weasel, or he is very confused.

-- Mal

[tabasco]

25. The republican freak show in Congress wants to turn America into a horror movie. n/t

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

26. Except that this Congressman is a Democrat.

Plenty of freaks to go around these days.

[tabasco]

28. Dear God.

Bad ASSumption on my part.

I suppose it doesn't mean much to be a Democrat anymore.

Payday loans, sell your organs. What's next on the Democratic agenda? Indentured servitude?

[Akicita]

31. Indentured servitude is already here. They call it student loans these days.

These loans are used to pay for rock climbing walls and bloated professor salaries.

[pmorlan1]

27. Horrible Bill

The health insurance industry pushed the meme that we had to have "skin in the game" so they could justify raising rates and lowering benefits. Now we have to have kidneys in the game too? What a horrible, horrible bill. Yeah, let those poor people donate a kidney because they are in dire financial straits and besides they don't matter anyhow so they might as well be productive for the "good" people who need kidneys. Ugh.

[Akicita]

30. How many times have I read right here on DU that a woman has control of her own body

and that any decisions about her body are between her and her doctor and not the government.

I am conflicted on this issue. On the one hand, I believe people own their own bodies not the government. And people are currently dying waiting for organ donations to become available. On the other hand, I can see that desperate poor people and the not so smart or drug addled will sometimes be taken advantage of.

And aren't people already being paid to be guinea pigs for new drug testing?

It doesn't sit well with me that people in the organ donation business make huge profits while the donors themselves make nothing. It would be better if the whole operation from donor to transplant were done on a non profit basis.

[Igel]

33. It's tricky to run.

In principle, there's no reason a system couldn't be designed to make it work.

Countries that have tried cash for organs have a stunning drop in wait lists. Down to about zero.

However, there's pressure on the poor to sell because they need the money, and shoddy care for most of them after they do "donate." However in the US a lot of times much of the expense of donating can't be paid for by the recipient, so not only do you give up the organ but you have to pay through the nose (so to speak) for the privilege.

[Bayard]

35. Medicaid

Our surgeries were completely paid by my sister's Medicaid.

[Justice]

34. Context people -- National Kidney Foundation is encouraging living donors

This year, the NFK is encouraging living donors - they want more people to donate a kidney to a person in need (a stranger, not a relative).

Legislators have already introduced legislation that prohibits insurer from discriminating against live donors.
See https://www.kidney.org/news/national-kidney-foundation-urges-support-living-donor-protection-act
The Living Donor Protection Act (H.R. 4616) was introduced in the House of Representatives on February 25, 2016, by Representative Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) along with Representative Michael Burgess, MD (R-TX). An identical bill (S. 2584) was introduced in the Senate by Senator Mark Kirk (R-IL) and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY). The bill prohibits insurance companies from denying or limiting life, disability and long-term care insurance and from charging higher premiums to living organ donors.

Cartwright's new piece of legislation actually goes farther to protect donors and actually makes sense - not only can you not discriminate but you must do something to affirmatively help a live donor.

Incidentally, I know of a company that is working to expand the time period for transplanting deceased kidneys. The window is very short now from death to transplant - this company can extend the time period for a day or so - which dramatically increases of the pool of avaiable cadavar kidneys for transplant. They are looking for money for final testing but cannot find it. Too much money in dialysis treatments - why bother spending money on an actual cure!

[jmowreader]

38. This was SUPPOSED to be a joke...

[Marrah_G]

42. I'd be happy to sell the infected kidney that just put me in the hospital for 3 days!!!!!!!!!!!!

@#$%^&*