4 ms·

> and so this would save lives lives of people who can buy a kidney. this is a transfer of longevity from poor people to rich people. and since because every

> and so this would save lives lives of people who can buy a kidney. this is a transfer of longevity from poor people to rich people. and since because everything balances, in the future it will take selling a kidney to get to the average, and poor people will end in the same place but with only one kidney

intuitionist 2y ago
The linked article suggests that the federal government would be a monopsony buyer in the US kidney market. My understanding is that most serious policy proposals along these lines would have the same feature. Medicare already covers care for nearly all US citizens with severe chronic kidney disease; paying for kidney donations would move some number of patients from dialysis to transplant but they wouldn’t be out of pocket.
- keybored 2y ago
  I don’t see how that solves the potential problem. You could still end up in the same place of “balancing out” where the extra money from your kidney becomes something you need i.e. a transfer from poor to rich people.
  - intuitionist 2y ago
    Well, the people receiving the kidneys won’t be rich on average, although it’s possible they’ll be richer on average than the compensated donors. There’s a big shortfall of available kidneys but the number is pretty tiny compared to the number of people living paycheck-to-paycheck in America. So it seems unlikely to me that in the future everyone needs to donate a kidney just to stay in the same place—that’d be a couple orders of magnitude more kidneys than we need.
    - keybored 2y ago
      Fair point that there isn’t a high enough demand to cause a lot of poor people to be monokidneys.
nerdponx 2y ago
Great example of how simply allowing a market to exist can result in inequality, compared to if the market were illegal.
southernplaces7 2y ago
>this is a transfer of longevity from poor people to rich people. Wealthy people can in any case already often buy kidneys and other organs if they desperately need them, and if they're famous, or influential politicians, they might even get a jump ahead for donor kidneys. At least with a legal market, buying a desperately needed organ wouldn't require that you be someone with special connections and all kinds of unique advantages. You'd just need the damn money. The hatred towards what should be an obvious market of voluntary exchange in which people trade something so obviously theirs and personal to others who need it for obvious reasons is absurd and irrational. The current system is disastrous and in need of aperture for experimentation. Clamping down on this because of bullshit dogmatism is disgusting. Lives are literally at stake.

intuitionist 2y ago

The linked article suggests that the federal government would be a monopsony buyer in the US kidney market. My understanding is that most serious policy proposals along these lines would have the same feature. Medicare already covers care for nearly all US citizens with severe chronic kidney disease; paying for kidney donations would move some number of patients from dialysis to transplant but they wouldn’t be out of pocket.

keybored 2y ago
I don’t see how that solves the potential problem. You could still end up in the same place of “balancing out” where the extra money from your kidney becomes something you need i.e. a transfer from poor to rich people.
- intuitionist 2y ago
  Well, the people receiving the kidneys won’t be rich on average, although it’s possible they’ll be richer on average than the compensated donors. There’s a big shortfall of available kidneys but the number is pretty tiny compared to the number of people living paycheck-to-paycheck in America. So it seems unlikely to me that in the future everyone needs to donate a kidney just to stay in the same place—that’d be a couple orders of magnitude more kidneys than we need.
  - keybored 2y ago
    Fair point that there isn’t a high enough demand to cause a lot of poor people to be monokidneys.

nerdponx 2y ago

Great example of how simply allowing a market to exist can result in inequality, compared to if the market were illegal.

southernplaces7 2y ago

>this is a transfer of longevity from poor people to rich people. Wealthy people can in any case already often buy kidneys and other organs if they desperately need them, and if they're famous, or influential politicians, they might even get a jump ahead for donor kidneys. At least with a legal market, buying a desperately needed organ wouldn't require that you be someone with special connections and all kinds of unique advantages. You'd just need the damn money. The hatred towards what should be an obvious market of voluntary exchange in which people trade something so obviously theirs and personal to others who need it for obvious reasons is absurd and irrational. The current system is disastrous and in need of aperture for experimentation. Clamping down on this because of bullshit dogmatism is disgusting. Lives are literally at stake.