> Kidney disease is the eighth-leading cause of death in the United States. Since 1998, more than 100,000 Americans have died while on a kidney waiting list. And by 2030, more than 1 million people are projected to be suffering from kidney failure.
> The cure for kidney failure is a new kidney. But finding a donor kidney is an arduous process. After all, it’s a lot to ask—the testing and screening before a donation, a surgery, and then the recovery. Most donor kidneys come from friends and family; just a small number come from altruistic donors. And despite advancements in making the surgery safer and research showing that the risks are minimal, unsurprisingly very few people are willing to take that step.
> In most situations where an important good is in short supply, prices go up, spurring more production. But it’s illegal to provide compensation for kidneys in the United States. Sometimes donors can get assistance with covering lost wages or travel, but that doesn’t come close to compensating people for the time, pain, and risks associated with kidney donation.
> On today’s episode of Good on Paper, I’m joined by the Vox senior correspondent Dylan Matthews. Matthews himself donated a kidney to a stranger in 2016, after his research and writing on the issue led him to believe the risks were minimal and the potential benefit to a recipient was great. He’s reporting on—and arguing for the passage of—the End Kidney Deaths Act, which would provide $50,000 in fully refundable tax credits to kidney donors.
> “You go into a hospital. You do something that is physically strenuous. You take time and effort out of your life to save someone’s life, and then you get nothing for it,” he told me. “Your surgeon gets something for it. Nurses get something for it. Everyone else—and it drives me particularly crazy when I hear transplant surgeons talk about how it undermines the altruism of the gift to compensate it. *You’re making $200,000 a year, and you’re going to lecture me about how it undermines the altruism to get paid a few tens of thousands of dollars for saving someone’s life?* Like, *Go to hell.*”
1 Comment
> Kidney disease is the eighth-leading cause of death in the United States. Since 1998, more than 100,000 Americans have died while on a kidney waiting list. And by 2030, more than 1 million people are projected to be suffering from kidney failure.
> The cure for kidney failure is a new kidney. But finding a donor kidney is an arduous process. After all, it’s a lot to ask—the testing and screening before a donation, a surgery, and then the recovery. Most donor kidneys come from friends and family; just a small number come from altruistic donors. And despite advancements in making the surgery safer and research showing that the risks are minimal, unsurprisingly very few people are willing to take that step.
> In most situations where an important good is in short supply, prices go up, spurring more production. But it’s illegal to provide compensation for kidneys in the United States. Sometimes donors can get assistance with covering lost wages or travel, but that doesn’t come close to compensating people for the time, pain, and risks associated with kidney donation.
> On today’s episode of Good on Paper, I’m joined by the Vox senior correspondent Dylan Matthews. Matthews himself donated a kidney to a stranger in 2016, after his research and writing on the issue led him to believe the risks were minimal and the potential benefit to a recipient was great. He’s reporting on—and arguing for the passage of—the End Kidney Deaths Act, which would provide $50,000 in fully refundable tax credits to kidney donors.
> “You go into a hospital. You do something that is physically strenuous. You take time and effort out of your life to save someone’s life, and then you get nothing for it,” he told me. “Your surgeon gets something for it. Nurses get something for it. Everyone else—and it drives me particularly crazy when I hear transplant surgeons talk about how it undermines the altruism of the gift to compensate it. *You’re making $200,000 a year, and you’re going to lecture me about how it undermines the altruism to get paid a few tens of thousands of dollars for saving someone’s life?* Like, *Go to hell.*”
!ping HEALTH-POLICY&PHILOSOPHY