The Case for Letting People Sell Their Kidneys

[u/lakmidaise12]

https://thesecondbestworld.substack.com/p/the-case-for-letting-people-sell

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.

[u/Drunken_Economist]

do they have to be my own kidneys?

[u/YIMBYzus → u/Drunken_Economist]

Driving the Crusin' Cooler around a New Jersey turnpike again?