The New York Times, Science Times, June 18, 2012
To the Editor:
Re “The Reward for Donating a Kidney: No Insurance” (The Consumer, June 12): Health insurers’ refusal to cover kidney donors after their donation is patently unjust. But our health care system’s injustice is also evident among cadaveric, brain-dead donors. As we found in a 2008 study, 17 percent of organ donors are uninsured while fewer than 1 percent of transplant recipients lack coverage. The health care system denies adequate care to many of the uninsured during life. Yet, in death, the uninsured often give strangers the ultimate gift.
This pattern surely does not reflect the values or intentions of the transplant community. Rather, it is inflicted by a payment system that prioritizes insurers’ profits over human needs.
Steffie Woolhandler, M.D.
David U. Himmelstein, M.D.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/19/health/uncovered-in-life-1-letter.html