I’m pleased that the Washington Post published this letter of mine.
Alvin E. Roth made a compelling case for allowing people to receive monetary payments in exchange for donating kidneys [“90,000 people are waiting for an organ that can’t be bought,” op-ed, May 10]. Squeamishness about such transactions doesn’t come close to outweighing the enormous benefits of saving thousands of lives.
But in the unfortunately likely event that such squeamishness continues to prevent payment for kidney donations, an intermediate step is worthwhile – namely, as University of Michigan law professor Adam Pritchard and I first proposed in the 1990s, when people receive or renew their driver’s licenses, offer to pay them to sign up to be organ donors.
As of 2023, just under 50 percent of licensed drivers in the U.S. are registered donors. A small inducement — say, $50 — to register would likely result in a large increase in registrations without anyone sacrificing a kidney or other organ unless and until they are declared dead.
Taking this intermediate step toward compensating people for offering kidneys for transplant might increase the likelihood of the best policy — the one proposed by Roth — eventually being adopted.
Donald J. Boudreaux, Fairfax
The writer is an economics professor at George Mason University and a senior fellow at the Mercatus Center.
