According to USA Today, a proposal has put forth by the president of the nonprofit organization, LifeSharers, to reward those who had agreed to be organ donors (by signing the organ donor cards) prior to being put on the transplant list by moving them to the top of the transplant list.

Why? According to Lifesharers’ president Undis, only half of Americans eligible to be organ donors sign up. So is this a proposal to incentivize signing the back of one’s driver’s license or to reward those who chose to donate organs when they were healthy or both?

While it certainly is a provocative proposal and may even have the incidental benefit of increasing the number of persons who sign donor cards, there is merit in the system that currently exists which is based on giving organs to those with the greatest medical need.

What I would propose is some combination of the Lifesharer’s criterion–having signed a donor card–considered in combination with the sickness of the potential recipient. It seems hardly fair that all persons who signed donor cards who need organs should jump the queue ahead of even the sickest of patients, yet there is at the very least some intuitive appeal in rewarding those individuals who had been willing to donate kidneys, livers, eyes, hearts and more prior to their own illness.

Lifesharer’s just may be on to something, but I don’t think they’ve solved the entire organ shortage and queuing problem. A hybrid solution between the UNOS prioritization system used now and Lifesharers is most likely to be the optimal solution for all. Plus it may have additional benefit of incentivizing choosing to be an organ donor.

Summer Johnson, PhD