Consider a poor or indebted person that owns a car, and needs some benefits from social security. Many republicans would argue (as they do now) that they should "lift themselves by the bootstraps" and sell their car, use public transit instead as a first step to increasing their income right ? Now what do you think will happen when that poor person suddenly has the option to sell their kidney for $50k? The same thing. Their KIDNEY will be considered a "luxury" that they should part with rather than something a little more important than that. Think about the same narrative around "millenials should just stop eating avocado toast" vs. the real problems of wage stagnation or college debt.
What if debt collectors could one day consider a kidney a monetary asset like a house, and force them to give it up? How would you feel, if you sold a kidney at 30, and now you're 70 and your remaining kidney fails?
What if the social security basket shrinks proportionally because 10% of people now opt to sell their kidneys and take less social security- is that REALLY better than letting them keep their damn kidney and paying a bit more taxes on social security? A purely economic perspective would say yes...
Broadly speaking, you are reducing a much bigger problem into a small "economics 101" lens.
No, it doesn't seem like you read anything that i've said thus far. You have not articulated any problems. You have gestured at them. Someone's kidney being removed is not, in and of itself, a problem. Play the scenario all the way through. Where do the problems start? You seem to want to imply that there will be latent health consequences to the people doing this. But even the slightest amount of research would quickly dispel that myth.
So, i'll ask again: What if any, specific, negative consequences will accrue to individuals or society at large as a result of a market in kidneys?
Yeah no you didn't read shit. One "latent health problem" I specifically called out is what if your other freaking kidney fails later? Any shred of common sense would tell you that yes, having one of your organs removed IS a problem. And you ignored everything about perverse incentives that it creates. As if you. in your infinite wisdom, can predict every single "specific, negative consequence" caused by those.
It's also condemned by the World Health Organization unless totally altruistic because organ trafficking and human trafficking are intertwined with the politics of organ transplantation.
Living donor programs already exist in many states and hospitals - If you want to help reduce medicare spending by donating your organs, go for it! But don't expect to get paid for it any time soon.
It has negative externalities as well. The poor cannot afford to donate kidneys - the time out of work, the lifetime extra health maintenance and checkups. So it becomes a rich person's prerogative.
And it remove a source of cash from an entire population, with all that entails.
I'm not surprised - you probably didn't even look into the living donor programs available in the US.
Many hospitals will cover most if not all of these costs, including your wages, health maintenance, checkups, etc. If the hospital near you won't cover these things, the National Living Donor Assistance Program will help.
> And it remove a source of cash from an entire population, with all that entails
There's something like 100,000 people on the kidney donor list right now (UNOS). Maybe 20,000 of these get a kidney donation per year. It's not really that much of lost productivity, and as we have already explained these costs are usually covered by programs for living donors.
You're acting like this isn't a solved problem, when it is except that people are attached to their own body parts. I for one don't really want to give my kidney away unless I'm already dead. Maybe we should argue for opt-out deceased organ donation programs nationally, instead of this asinine idea that we should allow poor people to sell their kidneys.
That 'asinine' comment seemed out of place. 80,000 people die, and the problems with 'poor people having a source of cash' is the bigger issue? I honestly don't understand the emotion surrounding this.
I can sell my life (ok, 8 hours of every day) and no problem.