Health Care Market Paper

Unfortunately, the supply and demand for organs in order to help patients in need of transplants has always been off equilibrium. That’s the reason there is a list that patients are put on, which has several different criteria in order to get your placement on the list. Several people believe that Doctors and the members of the board in charge of deciding the placement of the patients on the donor list can be given incentive in order to put someone higher on the list then the criteria calls for, but there isn’t even really a ranking on the list.

In order to make it fair for everyone the National Organ Transplant Act was established in 1984. It’s the national organ sharing system that is operated by the United Network for Organ Sharing, which is a nonprofit organization contracted with the Division of Transplantation in the Department of Health and Human Services. This was done in order to prevent the lost of the public’s trust, because these peoples’ lives depend on these organs. The UNOS maintains the central computer network that has the names of the patients waiting for organs and they are staffed 24 hours a day in order to respond quickly to any changes that are needed on the patients’ status, any requests to list patients, and help coordinate the placement of organs. The people put on the list are in the end-stage of organ failure and were evaluated by a physician specializing in transplantations. The polices are created and revised by the UNOS committees as well as the board of directors and no changes are made without it being openly debated and published for public comment. “Contrary to popular belief, waiting on the list for a transplant is not like taking a number at the deli counter and waiting for your turn to order. In some respects, even the word "list" is misleading; the list is really a giant pool of patients. There is no ranking or patient order until there is a donor, because each donor's blood type, size and genetic characteristics...