Kidney donation/transplant benefits

[RickHow]

Interesting information. Currently in New York State a bill is being considered concerning kidney donation. If a person would donate a kidney, then for the rest of their life (the donating person) would have totally free health insurance. This is to serve as incentive for donation. Why? Because of a huge shortage of available kidney's. Currently more than 121000 people in the United States await a kidney. 8000 of them live in New York State. However in the past year there were only 521 people who donated a kidney. So 8000 needed, only 521 donated. In New York the waiting list for a kidney is the 3rd longest list in the nation. Now think of that a minute. New York is the 3rd most populated state in America with over 19 million people. 19 million!!! But only 521 kidney donations. Lets hope this bill passes and provides an increase in donations.

[Bassetmommer]

Wow, that is a really exciting proposal. I wonder how us NY'ers rate compare to the rest of the states. Do we have more or less people with CKD?

[RickHow in reply to Bassetmommer]

Here is a link to the Center of Disease Control. A lot of interesting statistics about CKD in America (by race, by age, by percent of population, etc.). But they do not break it down by state. Interesting numbers that struck me was that 15% of population has CKD, 9 our of 10 of them do not even know it.

[WYOAnne]

That is interesting. So New Yorker's are not willing to register as a donor? That is the only reason I can think of that so few transplants are done in the state, compared to those waiting. I have lived in WI and in WY and both about 60% of the population are registered as a donor.

When I had my transplant in 1999 the waiting list was around 65,000 waiting for a kidney. In 20 years that number has doubled.

Maybe the bill in New York could get other states to follow