Kidneys — Suggestions to increase donations

The following information is from Sally Satel & Benjamin Hippin, A Way To Reward Organ Donors, Forbes.com, Oct. 30, 2008:

• Kidneys are the organs in greatest demand (75% of the individuals waiting for organs).
• Only 25% of the people waiting for a kidney will receive one this year.
• Unlike most organs, a living person can donate a kidney and still live a relatively healthy life.
• Some people take “desperate” measures to get a kidney such as advertising on billboards or going overseas to receive a kidney from an underground market.
• To increase the number of donations, these writers think “[t]he government should devise a safe, regulated system in which would-be donors are offered incentives to donate a kidney–not necessarily cash payment but material reward of some kind.”
• Suggested examples of incentives include lifelong health insurance, tax credits, tuition vouchers, or retirement plan contributions.
• Several obstacles exist to providing incentives:
  • The 1984 National Organ Transplant Act (NOTA) provides that it is a felony for donors to receive compensation.  Note that a bill may be proposed in Congress, the Organ Donor Clarification Act of 2008, to clarify that NOTA does not prevent government action to encourage organ donation.
  • The National Kidney Foundation opposes incentives claiming that they would “cheapen the gift.”