While working out this evening I heard a very interesting podcast with Richard Epstein. Richard is teaches law at the University of Chicago and will be teaching at NYU next semester. Epstein is able to talk in whole paragraphs which is quite impressive. He clearly is an academic intellect and is a brilliant man. I sometimes think of him as a genius on steroids.
I was listening to an old EconTalk podcast dated June 5, 2006 where Russ Roberts (host) was asking Epstein his thoughts on the market of organ donation. Epstein pointed out that it really is a tragedy that people have to go on dialysis for many years waiting to receive a kidney transplant. Current laws prohibit people from selling their own kidneys. I believe this is a tragedy given so many people die each year waiting for kidneys. Also it should be noted that dialysis cost around $100,000 a year which obviously is not a cheap solution. The podcast discussed how people have some negative connotation to permanently dismembering their body and giving it away. Epstein quickly points out that people give away blood and sperm. Some type of system where people could pay for kidneys and trade them freely would be beneficial. People always claim that people would get taken advantage of if there were a free market for kidneys. Clearly, this is nonsense given it would be voluntary transaction. Currently, a black market exists for kidneys. Black markets only exist when markets are not working.
Nobel Prize winning economist Gary Becker has done work on this subject and suggests that, “according to Ortner (2005), the average cost of a liver transplant is about $335,000 in the United States.” Becker and the other author suggest that “a value well over $500,000 per person transplanted immediately after netting out total cost of kidney transplants, which include pay to donors”. If this were possible a market could be started for kidney transplant which inevitably would decrease the risk of death and risk associated with this type of procedure. If the government were to allow the transaction of kidneys doctors continually increasing the quality in addition to decreasing risk (think scales of economies). Isn’t it immoral to have tens of thousands of people dying every year when there clearly could be a market that could save lives and increase the wealth of certain donors?
Link to Becker’s work:
http://home.uchicago.edu/~gbecker/MarketforLiveandCadavericOrganDonations_Becker_Elias.pdf
I was listening to an old EconTalk podcast dated June 5, 2006 where Russ Roberts (host) was asking Epstein his thoughts on the market of organ donation. Epstein pointed out that it really is a tragedy that people have to go on dialysis for many years waiting to receive a kidney transplant. Current laws prohibit people from selling their own kidneys. I believe this is a tragedy given so many people die each year waiting for kidneys. Also it should be noted that dialysis cost around $100,000 a year which obviously is not a cheap solution. The podcast discussed how people have some negative connotation to permanently dismembering their body and giving it away. Epstein quickly points out that people give away blood and sperm. Some type of system where people could pay for kidneys and trade them freely would be beneficial. People always claim that people would get taken advantage of if there were a free market for kidneys. Clearly, this is nonsense given it would be voluntary transaction. Currently, a black market exists for kidneys. Black markets only exist when markets are not working.
Nobel Prize winning economist Gary Becker has done work on this subject and suggests that, “according to Ortner (2005), the average cost of a liver transplant is about $335,000 in the United States.” Becker and the other author suggest that “a value well over $500,000 per person transplanted immediately after netting out total cost of kidney transplants, which include pay to donors”. If this were possible a market could be started for kidney transplant which inevitably would decrease the risk of death and risk associated with this type of procedure. If the government were to allow the transaction of kidneys doctors continually increasing the quality in addition to decreasing risk (think scales of economies). Isn’t it immoral to have tens of thousands of people dying every year when there clearly could be a market that could save lives and increase the wealth of certain donors?
Link to Becker’s work:
http://home.uchicago.edu/~gbecker/MarketforLiveandCadavericOrganDonations_Becker_Elias.pdf
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