Kidney Transplants

Improved Essays
“Each year less than 20% of 25,000 healthy persons who die unexpectedly in the U.S. become donors.” (Nelson 64) It is also important to note that the method of voluntary donation that has been adopted in the U.S. since the 1984 act is not without its problems. Studies have shown that even with the current “first come first serve” donation system of the U.S. that built-in biases, based not only on class but also race, manage to continually persist. (Health and Human Service Offices of Minority Health) These biases negatively affect the poor as well as racial minorities in the U.S. that are in need of organ donations whilst favoring the wealthy and racial majority of the U.S. This information reveals current systematic problems within U.S. voluntary …show more content…
This is an especially attractive practice considering how donating a kidney can save someone whom would otherwise die of renal failure. In fact, since kidney transplants have an incredibly high 95% success rate there would seem to be altogether little to lose and much to gain for someone selling their kidney on a regulated free market. (Nelson 63) Alvin Roth, a Nobel-winning economist, explained his interest in how a kidney market would work. He explains that procedures can be put into place that could allow hospitals to reimburse donors, and from there the hospitals could be reimbursed through private insurance or Medicare. Roth's insight on how a kidney market could function portrays that putting such a system in place may prove difficult, but not impossible. In the article “Give a Kidney, Get a Check” writer Shmuly Yanklowitz explains that a great deal of the worry raised by those whom are in opposition of an organ free market make claims of it potentially becoming exploitative of the poor. Yanklowitz explains that roughly 1 in 5 transplanted kidneys originate from the black market (as of 2010) as they are sold by poor individuals whom are in debt, if an appropriately regulated kidney market were to be put into place these individuals would be far more likely to receive fair compensation for kidneys they wish to

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