Outrageous! Kidney donors are often denied health insurance

Are insurance company executives TRYING to make us hate their industry?

It wouldn’t be hard, would it? Our premiums go up. Our coverage goes down. And now this…

Healthy people who donate kidneys are often denied individual health insurance. Even life insurance is sometimes denied.

How infuriating is that!? It’s the LOWEST imaginable way to treat someone who acts on such a pure level of generosity.

In fact, if they’re concerned about good business, it should be the opposite. Anyone who donates a kidney should receive free health care for life.

That would be the right thing to do. But in addition, it would create important health benefits as well.

For instance… The possibility of insurance denial discourages potential kidney donors. That means that thousands of patients survive with dialysis. And the difference between living with dialysis and living with a transplant is obvious. It’s the difference between living like an invalid and living a normal life.

And the cost is astronomical. Dialysis in the U.S. costs nearly $40 billion per year. Insurance covers much of that. Meanwhile, a kidney transplant costs about the same as two years of dialysis.

Insurance companies, are you doing the math here? YOU spend less on dialysis, and in return, people live healthier, more productive lives.

In addition, studies show that the rate of kidney failure is actually LOWER among kidney donors compared to the general population. And donors live just as long as their two-kidnied counterparts do.

If insurance executives are trying to make us hate their industry, they’re doing a wonderful job. They could so easily generate enormous goodwill by treating kidney donors with the respect and gratitude they deserve.

Sources:
“The Reward for Donating a Kidney: No Insurance” Roni Caryn Rabin, New York Times, 6/11/12, well.blogs.nytimes.com