Every time I meet a patient who’s an organ recipient, I am amazed at the accomplishment of organ transplantation. The way it extends people’s length and quality of life is just spectacular. Sadly, people die every day waiting for organs, while usable ones are buried. There needs to be a national effort to increase donation rates; the payoff is enormous.

I was excited to see today that the Washington Post gets it.

This suffering and waste could be alleviated if more people agreed to give organs posthumously. Currently only a little more than half of the 14,000 people annually who die in circumstances that would make them suitable donors give organs. All state governments and the District have tried to encourage donations by asking people to sign up when they apply for a driver’s license. But not enough people respond to this prompting, so it’s time to consider extra incentives.

Three types of incentives merit attention. The decision to pledge organs could be linked to the chance of receiving one: People who check the box on the driver’s-license application when they are healthy would, if they later fell sick, get extra points in the system used to assign their position on the transplant waiting list (other factors include how long you have waited and how well an available organ would match your blood type and immune system). Another sort of incentive is financial: Georgia has experimented with a $9 discount on its driver’s-license fee. A final reform would shift from opt-in organ donations to an opt-out system: Unless you went out of your way to check a box on your driver’s license application to indicate that you did not want to give organs, you would be considered a potential donor.

These reforms don’t raise significant ethical issues. They would not allow people to buy and sell organs, and they would not allow patients to pay their way to the top of the organ-transplant queue. Each reform, or some combination of them, would save money and relieve suffering. The District and state governments shouldn’t wait.

Hear, hear.

Posted by Amanda in Health Policy |