As of December 2025, 108,440 people were on the U.S. organ transplant waiting list. Of those, 94,015 were waiting for a kidney. Every year, around nine thousand of them die waiting, or become too sick to transplant, which is functionally the same thing.
There is a policy that could probably fix most of this. Economists have been arguing for it since at least 2007. Some transplant surgeons and bioethicists have cautiously argued for versions of it for even longer. The policy is: pay kidney donors.
Not a black market. Not a dystopian organ bazaar where billionaires bid against each other for your liver. A boring, regulated, government-run compensation program where a public agency pays a fixed amount to anyone who passes medical screening, donates a kidney, and goes home with follow-up care guaranteed. The organs get allocated through the same waitlist system we already have. The rich don’t jump the line. The only thing that changes is that donors get compensated instead of being asked to undergo major surgery for free.
Posted by lakmidaise12
3 Comments
I’ve long been in favor of this, however I’ve never been broke and desperate. I could see this being problematic for a small subset of folks
This will just make homes more expensive/s
Technically you have two kidneys are can get by on one and the amount of people who could go back to work and get off Medicare off dialysis would be better for everyone. Funny article title tho lol.