[lbo-talk] organ donation

[John Thornton]

I wasn't claiming that a market for organs would be good. It would be bad. 
Less bad than the current system in my opinion. Of course the only sellers 
would be poor but claiming that the poor would be "just as badly off after 
they blow that wad" is another way of saying that the poor are too dumb to 
manage their finances and that may be the reason they're poor. Life sucks 
if you're poor but organ selling gives the poor one more crappy option 
(among a long list of crappy options) to use to try to improve their lives 
and it forces the rich pay for a good they currently receive free. People 
sell their fucking lives 40 to 60 hours at a time just to have shelter and 
food. Set a minimum price per organ, have a certain percentage of the 
organs available "bought" by the state and given freely to individuals 
below a certain income level. Sure this system will be abused, just like 
all systems get abused by some individuals with the power to do so. Better 
chance of getting this system set up in the short term than free health 
care for all and in all likely hood the grotesque nature of it may 
accelerate the drive to reform the system for the better in substantial 
ways. Short of real reform organ selling is the lesser of the two evils 
between it and the current system in my opinion. I'm always open to 
persuasive arguments however.

John Thornton


>At 5/19/2003,, you wrote:
>>Message: 2
>>Date: Mon, 19 May 2003 18:42:32 -0500
>>To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
>>From: John Thornton <jthorn65 at mchsi.com>
>>Subject: [lbo-talk] Re: [lbo-talk]organ donation
>>Reply-To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
>>
>>
>> >There are convincing arguments from health care ethicists about why paying
>> >for organ donation is a bad idea and morally dangerous. You don't even
>> >have to go economic theory to figure out that as far as health policy
>> >ideas go, it's completely naff.
>> >
>> >The world isn't perfect but turning organ donation into a commercial
>> >transaction would go a significant way towards making it worse.
>> >
>> >PC
>>
>>How so? The wealthy get moved to the top of the list and the poor get moved
>>to the bottom "most" of the time. You can find examples of some poor person
>>whose life was saved by organ donation but it's just P.R. to keep people in
>>favour of the current system. I used to work in the medical field, trust
>>me, the rich get the organs free of charge in a system heavily weighted in
>>their favour.
>
>No doubt they do, in fact one of the best correlates with good health 
>indicators, health outcomes and access to services is income and/or SES, 
>even here in the great white north and our 'socialized' health care system.
>
>The objections to selling organs relate to concerns about the nature of 
>the donor/recipient relationship. Personally I think the surgeon who 
>performed that transplant on the rich guy with an employee donor was an 
>immoral fuck who should lose his license. There is no way that donation 
>was made without some degree of coercion, or expectation of return. 
>Similarly if you create a (legal) market for organs in no time flat you 
>will have undesirable and immoral behavior at the margins; the only people 
>selling will be people for whom $12,000, or whatever is a vast sum of 
>money, who will have no way of raising that kind of coin again and will be 
>left just as badly off after they blow that wad. Organ buyers or their 
>proxies will coerce sellers, health care is not a normal market good, 
>there is no way a market within it will work.
>
>Have a look at the blood and sperm donor businesses and who donates, 
>there's your for profit organ bank.
>
>Rich people can kill people too, they're called workplace accidents, 
>pollution and defective products. That doesn't mean we need to condone and 
>encourage that behavior.
>
>>Fuck'em. Make them pay for the kidney but designate that a
>>specific percentage of organs be given to people whose incomes are below a
>>specific amount. This may not be the ideal way but it sucks a whole lot
>>less than thew current one.
>
>It's only a symptom of a deeper problem in the American health care 
>system, as long as you have a fractionated market with for profit 
>providers your system is terminally screwed up.
>
>PC
>
>
>>John Thornton
>
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