Organ Donations

[jjshabado]

One last point before I go to work, while you can make an argument that paying people for donating kidneys won't increase the price because its still cheaper then long term dialysis (an argument that is suspect at best) you can't make the same argument for many of the other body parts you can donate. Each one of those now costs more because you're paying the donator money. Again, that money has to come from somewhere.

[bobman0330]

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These links don't really address the point you quoted about increasing insurance costs. You think companies are going to pay this extra money out of the goodness of their hearts?

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I addressed it already. They are going to pay it because they won't have to pay for months to years of daily dialysis treatments. It's cheaper to buy a kidney than to keep a man on dialysis until he dies.

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Again, thats not the damn comparison. Paying people for their organs doesn't introduce the choice of dialysis vs. transplant. It introduces a $6000 organ instead of a free organ.

Seriously, if you don't understand this point you need to take a basic lesson in logic.

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Are you out of your mind? It introduces a $6k kidney instead of no kidney at all and spending 6 years on a transplant waiting list.

To make the point clearer, at this very moment, there are people dying of diseases that could be cured by an organ transplant who are willing to pay thousands of dollars for that organ. At the same time, there are people (or their families) who would be willing to sell the needed organs for thousands of dollars. But instead the first person dies, and the second person or family remains poor because we have an insane law that prevents organ sales.

I don't agree that withholding organ donations is the right way to make a point about this subject, but if you're really gung-ho about improving the prospects for those in need of transplants, you should be ashamed of criticising organ sales.

[daryn]

haha jjshabado, you are the one missing the point about dialysis, not everyone else.

[Keepitsimple]

I dont understand people who dont agree to donate their organs. Especially those who dont do it for religious reasons. That is really f-d up logic.

[4_2_it]

If I'm not using them, go ahead and take them. My wife and I both agree that if either of us ever gets Shiavoed that the other one is to pull the plug without remorse.

[daryn]

actually religious reasons are the only ones i respect somehow. if you belong to some wacky religion, whatever.. but you're only being consistent if you're not donating organs for religious reasons.

[burningyen]

Related thread tangent: I recently heard that the vast majority of the cadavers that med schools use for their 1st-year anatomy dissection lab classes are bodies that have not been claimed and for whom no family members can be identified. These people never expressed a willingness to donate their bodies to science. OK or not OK?

[KotOD]

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It's illegal to sell organs because it would create a big black market for them.

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This is exactly backwards.

[Klompy]

I'm not an organ donar. I'm selfish, superstitious, and doing everyone a favor as I'm sure my liver and kidneys are prob worthless anyways.

[KotOD]

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What the hell is wrong with you? Are you actually this retarded, or are you just one of those people that would rather appear retarded then give up on your argument?

Right now a transplant costs X dollars. You're suggesting it should cost X + 6000. That "+ 6000" has to come from somewhere. Its not going to magically appear. You're saying insurance companies will pay it because its cheaper than dialysis. Except dialysis has nothing to do with this argument. Its simple math. If you increase the cost of something, people have to pay the additional money (or not get the good/service).

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Dialysis factors into it, because it's a sunk cost for the insurance company. If the person doesn't get a kidney - highly likely that he won't because there aren't enough kidneys to go around - the insurance company has to pay for ongoing dialysis treatments for the rest of the patient's life.

Ongoing dialysis treatments cost between $500-$1000 a week, depending on the number of treatments necessary per week, but the national average is ~$40,000 per year. The cost of kidney transplants, plus post-surgical care is ~$75,000, much less for better matches in the organ because they don't have to stay on anti-rejection drugs. Making that number $78,000 only decreases the Insurance companies ROI by a small amount.

Getting extra kidneys onto the market by offering $3,000 for a kidney saves insurance companies and medicare a huge amount of money per patient in the long run. To make this easy for you to understand:

Cost of ongoing renal care over four years for a patient: $160,000

Cost of transplant, with paid-for kidney: $78,000

The insurance companies will pay for kidneys, DUCY?