Financial compensation for cadaveric organ donation
Alex Tabarrok argues for it in this Marginal Revolution blog posting: "Dollars for Donors".
- "The shortage of human organs for transplant grows worse every year. Better immuno-suppressive drugs and surgical techniques have raised the demand at the same time that better emergency medicine, reduced crime and safer roads have reduced organ supply. As a result, the waiting list for organ transplants is now 82,000 and rising and more than 6000 people will die this year while waiting for a transplant...
"...Aside from the obvious benefits of saving lives, financial compensation for organ donation [Tabarrok appears to be talking specifically about cadaveric donation - Ben] would likely save money. Here is a back-of-the-envelope calculation. There are some 285,000 people on dialysis in the US. Transplants are cheaper than dialysis by something like $10-$25,000 per year. About a quarter of those on dialysis are on the waiting list but perhaps as many as half could benefit from a transplant (fewer people are put on the list because of the shortage.) Let's take the lower numbers. Assume that a quarter of the patients on dialysis could benefit from a transplant and that cost savings are $10,000 a year for five years. Then ending the shortage would save 3.5 billion dollars. Note again that this is a lower estimate. How much would it cost to end the shortage? No one knows for certain but I think a $5000 gift to the estates of organ donors would increase supply enough to greatly alleviate the shortage - that would involve doubling the supply to 12,000 for a paltry cost of $60 million. If this is not enough - raise the gift - anyway you cut it, the savings from dialysis exceed the costs of compensating donors by a large margin.
"We should in fact count the value of the lives saved. If we can save 6000 lives and value each life at 3 million dollars (a lower value than what the US government typically uses in its calculations) then that is a further gain of 18 billion dollars."
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