ABC News reports on Steve Jobs’ return to Apple after a liver transplant in June:
“As some of you know, about five months ago I had a liver transplant,” Jobs said. “I now have the liver of a mid-20s person who died in a car crash and was generous enough to donate their organs, and I wouldn’t be here without such generosity.”
…June 23, officials at the Methodist University Hospital Transplant Institute in Memphis, Tenn., confirmed to the media, with Jobs’ permission, that he received the organ transplantation surgery at that center. The revelation sparked a debate over whether the wealthy are able to use their resources to game the national organ donation system.
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[O]rgan transplant experts and medical ethicists agreed that his money and mobility may have improved his odds either by going to an area of the country where there are more organ donors and fewer patients waiting, or by signing up at multiple transplant centers.
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Jobs said today that he hoped “all of us can be as generous and elect to become organ donors.”
While relocating to a new hospital for better odds and or signing up for multiple transplant centers isn’t breaking UNOS policies, ethicists and patients have previously criticized the practice as unfair.
Read all of this substantial article.
Whether or not the rich can game the existing system, it seems fair to say not enough of us decide whether or not to donate our organs. Consider the arguments of Cass Sunstein, President Obama’s nominee for regulation czar as summarized by Jake Tapper:
Sunstein in his book “Nudge” discussed the debate over how to provide more organs for the population at large, noting the proposal that the system should be changed from the government presuming a denial of organ donation permission to a presumption of consent unless otherwise indicated. One study from 2003 indicated that 42 percent of the population actively seek to be organ donors, while under the “presumed consent” system only 18 percent opt out.
Sunstein and his co-author, Richard Thaler, noted that “presumed consent” is “a hard sell politically. More than a few people object to the idea of ‘presuming’ anything when it comes to such a sensitive matter.” Thus the authors suggest that drivers be forced to make a choice. “With mandated choice, renewal of your driver’s license would be accompanied by a requirement that you check a box stating your organ donation preferences. Your application would not be accepted unless you had checked one of the boxes.”
This would be accompanied by a public education campaign as the state of Illinois has done, explaining the problem and trying to make organ donation more popular.