How much for your kidney?

[Skyy God]

Apparently the cost of a patient in dialysis (for the 5 year waiting period) is roughly 150K.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.co...ney-worth.html

The math is simple. In a country the size of the United States, a payment, either direct (cash, vouchers, or tax credits) or indirect (tuition, charitable donations, etc.) of, say, $20,000 to kidney donors would probably produce enough donated kidneys each year to eliminate or drastically reduce the backlog of approximately 83,000 people waiting for their turn to receive a donated kidney. This financial inducement would cost about $1.7 billion. The federal government currently pays 100 percent of the cost for treating most people with end-stage renal disease. With the average annual cost estimated at about $30,000 to maintain one person on dialysis, the taxpayers are paying about $8 billion a year to dialyze fellow citizens in kidney failure. Furthermore, people usually wait about five years to receive a donated kidney unless they are fortunate enough to have a living donor offer one of their two healthy kidneys. Thus, the actual total cost to the taxpayers of maintaining fellow citizens on dialysis for five years is approximately $40 billion.