A Market for Kidneys
Our conclusion is that a very large number of both live and cadaveric kidney donations would be available by paying about $15,000 for each kidney. That estimate isn’t exact, and the true cost could be as high as $25,000 or as low as $5,000 — but even the high estimate wouldn’t increase the total cost of kidney transplants by a large percentage.
Few countries have ever allowed the open purchase and sale of organs, but Iran permits the sale of kidneys by living donors. Scattered and incomplete evidence from Iran indicates that the price of kidneys there is about $4,000 and that waiting times to get kidneys have been largely eliminated. Since Iran’s per capita income is one-quarter of that of the U.S., this evidence supports our $15,000 estimate. Other countries are also starting to think along these lines: Singapore and Australia have recently introduced limited payments to live donors that compensate mainly for time lost from work.
Since the number of kidneys available at a reasonable price would be far more than needed to close the gap between the demand and supply of kidneys, there would no longer be any significant waiting time to get a kidney transplant. The number of people on dialysis would decline dramatically, and deaths due to long waits for a transplant would essentially disappear.
The problem of having a market for kidneys is that it would benefit the richer, and would leave the poor without chances of getting the organ. The upside of the waiting list is that (supposedly) there is no difference in how affluent you are. The right to get the transplant is not determined by who is more affluent, it is determined by urgency and who has waited for it the longest. If you cannot afford a kidney, valued at $15,000, you won’t get it regardless of how long you wait (assuming that the only difference in cost between the free market and the donor list transplant is the cost of the organ itself). A free market will solve some issues, but it also rises other ethical questions.
I’m not sure that’s necessarily true. Currently, the cost of a kidney transplant is high because of the barriers to acquiring kidneys. If the family of deceased patients could routinely sell a kidney for money, only a few people would refuse. As the article said, the shortage would disappear overnight. Without a shortage, poor people would have easier access to kidneys because the supply would skyrocket while the average cost per kidney would plummet.
Chase T, your argument is dumber than dumb. Rich people will always get their kidney, just like they get their coke.
Poor people won’t get the kidney, not even an inferior kidney, and they will be put in prison for trying to get a kidney.
Not only that, but for every poor person who can’t affore a BMW kidney, there will be one who gets a Kia kidney and serveral others who put food on the table by selling one.
You would make a great Apparatchik.
Or it will create a black market like the one ran by a New York Rabbi.
Even though there isn’t a market for kidneys in the United States, the average selling price is enormous. Yet, public health advocates hope dying patients — many whose families are facing medical bills — will donate a kidney worth thousands of dollars. But many people would rather bury their kidneys than donate them for free. It’s a safe bet that if organ banks were allowed to compensate families, say, $15,000 for the use of donor kidneys, there would be very few buried at the funeral.
I agree. There should be some incentives placed in order to increase the number of donors. Compensating the families for the donation and covering all the expenses are valid options. Also, the IRS gives tax credit to those who make a donation (money, goods, etc.) why not expand that to include organs as well?
Whoever wrote that is no student of economics. That a kidney that costs $4000 overseas would cost $15000 in the USSA is indicative of market failurs in the USSA. Our gummint policies force us to pay many times the world price for haircuts, taxi rides, sugar, wine and peanuts, so why not kidneys?
I can get all sorts of useful products from China at 1/3 the cost here in the USSA. Why not kidneys?
Answer: the power of Amerika’s insurance-medical-drug complex.
Here’s another thing: why the hell should I donate blood? I get little but pain and a waste of time, while the phlebotomists, docs, clinics and hospitals make a fortune.
I am not stupid enough to give blood or anything else the enables the elite to feather their own nests, including bone marrow, kidneys or blood, or even corneas or organs from my cadaver.
That’s precisely the point. There is a huge amount of money spent on kidney transplants. But of the immense number of dollars being transacted, nothing accrues to the donor. Doctors, hospitals, organ banks and numerous others get a piece of the high price paid by Medicare and private insurers.
For that matter, dialysis centers would probably lobby against compensating organ donors since many would be put out of business. The average client of a dialysis center would only be a client for a few months rather than year after year until they die.
Another good argument about this topic (that the authors mention in the article but doesn’t appear here) is about implied consent vs. informed consent. The first one implies that individuals are willing to donate organs unless explicitly stated against it. Informed consent means that individuals must specifically state that they want to donate organs. I believe that implied consent should be the approach used universally; it is the first step to untangle the transplant market.
Yes, but we use a version of informed consent in other areas of our economy. If I park my BMW on the street outside my home at night, there is no implied consent that it’s free for the taking. If someone steals it and is later caught, they cannot use as a defense that they assumed I no longer needed it.
How is implied consent any different than crooked morticians who harvest cadavers’ body parts illegally and sell them on the black market?
I can imagine the plight of grieving family members who discover they neglected to revoke informed consent. After the fact, they learn their loved one was stripped of body parts by the hospital like a stolen car in a chop shop. They call the hospital to complain and while on the phone they’re transferred to business office collections at the hospital. The business office reminds them they still owed $30,000 in unpaid hospital bills (including $150 plastic bedpans, $50 plastic water pitchers, $10 aspirin, etc.).
Of course, the hospital probably made more than $30,000 in revenue selling the harvested body parts even though it is technically illegal to trade in body parts. Of course, there are allowable costs hospitals, mortuaries, and organ banks can recoup that boosts their profit margin.
So if I can sell my kidney, what stops me to sell my heart. If my family needs the money, and we are in a desperate situation, I can sell my heart and all my problems would disappear. It is hard to say let’s open a market for kidneys and ignore that there are many other organs with a potential market, but with tougher ethical dilemmas.
I was wondering about letting the money from a sale go toward medical bills only for patients they are about to pull the plug on.
There are proposals that would allow receiving compensation for body parts from a cadaver, rather than a live donor. I believe it’s a travesty that family members cannot receive compensation for parts of a deceased family member. However, I’m not sure it is reasonable to allow cash-strapped people to sell a kidney. They could easily need that kidney years later and end up costing taxpayers money.
Hi everyone, I am saying this because i can’t keep it to my self anymore now that am better and strong, I did an operation in India two months ago after a friend of mine directed me to UBTH Specialist hospital that they buy human kidney i did not believe him until i contacted them to confirm my self, I did not even believe them at first because i was told to register with the NKF some amount which i was not even having on hand at that time, After providing them all my information in their to know how serious i am, They give me an assurance of paying me 300,000.00 dollars which i was paid half of the money before i went to India for the operation which is the
sum total of $300,000.00 Dollars after i paid the registration commission to their NKF. I am saying this because i want everyone out their who really want to be a kidney donor to contact them on the below email. My Name is Lilian Minton, contact them and you will see good result of what you want i know what am talking about.
ubth.kidney@gmail.com
Do you want to sell your kidney or other organs if yes apply for a sale today and you will be given the maximum satisfaction you need.Contact me via email: doctorhowardclinic@outlook.com