Should organ donors be paid?
With 96,000 Americans on the organ wait list and only 29,000 transplants performed last year, the transplant community constantly tries to encourage more people to donate. Yet some observers believe the volunteer system will never meet the need. Market proposals to increase the organ supply, MacLean Center for Medical Ethics Director Mark Siegler, MD’67, noted in his Ryerson lecture, “are attracting a lot of discussion in Washington.” The currently illegal practice of paying donors is also a hot topic within the University, where medical, business, and law faculty have taken part in the national debate. Proposals range from a free-market system, in which individuals pay for organs, to a regulated system where the government (Medicare or Medicaid) or private insurance pays donors, at suggested rates from a few hundred to tens of thousands of dollars. The idea isn’t new: in a 1997 Business Week column GSB professor Gary Becker, AM’53, PhD’55, asserted that “the federal government might b
