Trump’s Organ-Donation Policy Fix Would Save Lives
Biden put a useful new rule from his predecessor on hold. His administration should implement it without delay.
Seven thousand lives each year are in the balance.
Photographer: Christopher Furlong/Getty ImagesThe U.S. has a deadly shortage of donor kidneys, livers and other organs for transplant. The wait list is about 110,000 patients long, and every day 20 people die before their names come up. So it came as good news late last year, when the Trump administration set a new policy to demand more efficient service from the regional agencies that obtain and deliver deceased-donor organs for transplant.
This policy, which had been scheduled to take effect on Feb. 1, has been delayed — like many other late-breaking federal rule changes from the previous White House — so that President Joe Biden’s administration can review it. Xavier Becerra, who has just been confirmed as secretary of Health and Human Services, should quickly put the organ-donation policy back on track, because it stands to save some 7,000 lives and $1 billion in Medicare spending (on kidney dialysis) each year and, in the bargain, redress racial disparities in the U.S. organ transplant system.