The market and organ donation

I've posted a few things here before re: organ donation and ways people have come up with to reduce the shortage. Most of them involve paying people for their organs, or having organizations like Lifesavers, where only people who are organ donors them selves can receive organs.

One of the most recent articles I've read was in the Dispatch earlier this week. I'm going to have some of the author's comments here, and then my responses (he's in italic):

How did we arrive at this unfortunate situation? As is so often the case, our supposed servants in Washington are at fault. Would-be donors are not supplying as many kidneys as patients need because Congress has decreed that no one may sell their organs. Instead you can only give your organs away. Most people, including me, and almost certainly you, aren't willing to do that for anyone other than a family member or close friend. So people without arelative or friend who can give them a life-saving kidney are in trobuel. They have to take their chances on a very long waiting list, hoping the right person dies at the right time before the clock runs out.

First off, the main fallacy of this argument is that is it based SOLELY on kidney transplants. Now these are, along with bone marrow and some liver and RARELY some lung, able to be accomplished while the donor is alive (the liver regenerates). For heart and lung, obviously, you have to be dead. This is also true for corneas and a pancreas (I think). So selling your organs won't help because you'd basically be saying that you'd kill yourself. Now if you're not willing to go through an operation for someone else, I highly doubt you'd kill yourself.
Congress banned the selling of organs because there are some very, very desperate people who would probably consent to death in order to get money. Which brings up the question, who would pay for these organs? The author suggsts that it would be the patient. Who would determine the price? Oh, the "market."

Which is another issue. As my readers know, organ transplants aren't decided based on ability to pay. They are decided babsed on medical suitablilty, as well as a host of other factors. If you are not a good medical match, you don't get an organ. If you are not going to be compliant, you don't get the organ. If you have a history of noncompliance and an inability to BECOME compliant, then you don't get the organ. You don't even get listed. I saw lots of people in the CF clinic who were totally ineligible for transplant because they had screwed themselves up so completely, there was no way they'd be able to handle it.
Also, many centers have a high survival rate due to the fact that some centers are pickier than others about what organs they accept. Dr. A was always talking about getting me "optimal" organs, whcih drove me crazy at the time, but now I"m glad. How are we going to know how good thse organs are? The donor will have to submit to medical testing. This isn't cheap. So will he make the recipient pay? Or the insurance company? (Which they will be THRILLED about, let me tell you) And would the recipient have to pay before all these tests, or after? What if they just aren't
a good match?

The writer asserts that by legalizing the selling of organs
"they'd be no crisis like there is today." Um, wrong. Maybe not for kidneys, although the things I"ve written above raise serious doubt sin that quarter, but we would still have a vast number of people who are waiting for organs that cannot be obtained by living persons. But, again, the author is unable to see beyond kidney transplants.

If we were really serious about organ donation and decreasing the waiting list, we would make it easier to be a donor. If you are a donor on your license, that's your consent. We shouldn't need to have to get another approval from the family. We could ban smoking just about everywhere so there would be more lung and heart donors. We could ban alcohol use so that they're be more eligible liver donors. Now obviously I'm being a little facetious here. But using the market is not the way to go. There are too many questions, and it would totally upend the system. What aobut those who are NOT waiting for kidneys?

As for Lifesavers programs, those won't help either. It amazes me how so many of these groups don't even focus on the medical side of transplants. What if you die in a car accident and thuis are unable to donate organs due to extreme internal damage? Or you're no eligible to be an organ recipient due to some other factor? The whole "I'll do for you, you do for me" idea sounds good, but, like so many other things (social security, anyone?) it's a good in theory, bad in practice idea.

Sure, waiting for organs is no picnic. I know. But the way UNOS has it set up it is a fair system. Everyone, rich and poor, gets an equal shot. Insurance companies do a good job covering transplants, and it's getting better as they become more "mainstream" in medical treatment. To have people buying and selling organs like they buy Wendy's stock is not only impractical, but would have serious rammifciation for everyone involved in transplant--patients, hospitals, medical staff, OPAs, and others. And they would not be good.