Quote:
Originally Posted by Angela  Jessica, imagine you were diagnosed with leukemia and told that a bone marrow transplant could save your life -- without one, you had little hope of living very long. Unfortunately, like 70% of people in your situation, no one in your family is a match. And your insurance, like many, won't cover this special procedure.
But! Then you find Matilda, who is a perfect match! What a relief! And Matilda says, "you can have my bone marrow, if you'll pay me $10,000 to transport it to you." But you don't have $10,000. Too bad. Eight months later, you die.
Matilda lives another 60 years. The knowledge is rarely far from her consciousness that she could have easily saved your life, but didn't. Then she dies, too. |
lets put a twist on this scenario...
say Matilda works for a boss who doesnt care. She (Matilda) wants to donate, but her tyrant of a boss says she will be fired if she takes the time off work in order to go donate. Matilda is currently poor and living from paycheck to paycheck, so she cannot afford the lawyer and lawyer fees needed should she sue her boss. So she starts thinking to herself "if im not getting paid for my donation and if I risk losing my job, then why bother??" So, unfortuneately, she backs out of the donation deal, leading to the death of the reciepient.
Now for another twist....
Say it was legal to sell bone marrow and it was worth around $25,000 per cup, and that a new bill just passed thru congress that would make insurance companies cover the cost of the reciepient to buy the bone marrow for transplantation. (only for transplantation purposes, keep in mind) the costs are then covered. Matilda can then tell her tyrant of a boss where to stick it as she would have more than enough money to live off of should her boss try to fire her. Matilda then sells her bone marrow to the recipient, and the recipient lives. Both win. Everyones happy (except maybe for the insurance company but theyll get over it
)
Honestly I think being allowed the opportunity to sell rather than donate your bone marrow would benefit the economy. Simply being that since it would be considered a "sale" and not a "donation"
it would then be considered as income to be reported to the IRS for tax purposes. On average about 1-2 quarts (4 to 8 cups) of bone marrow is extracted for bone marrow transplantation purposes, so at say, $25,000 per cup of bone marrow, you would be looking at roughly $100,000 to $200,000 per sale in all, which would do more than enough to satisfy the economy tax wise. Factor in that you could sell your bone marrow a maximum of 6 times per year (once every two months), then the number grows as does the economy benefit more...
so in this instance, both parties win...