Such [kidney] transplants ultimately save money as well as lives. The federal Medicare program, which pays most treatment costs for chronic kidney disease, saves an estimated $500,000 to $1 million each time a patient is removed from dialysis through a live donor transplant (the operations typically cost $100,000 to $200,000). Coverage for kidney disease costs the government more than $30 billion a year, about 6 percent of the Medicare budget.
Everybody is looking to Obama to save the world and to save health care. Here is a contribution that you could make to national health care!
Email from a friend:
Subject: Fwd: NYTimes.com: 60 Lives, 30 Kidneys, All Linked
March is National Kidney Month and it is a good time to remind everyone of the importance of organ donation. I am not asking you to mail me a kidney, but I am asking that you forward this email to as many people as you can. All it takes to be part of a transplant chain is a willing donor. For someone who needs a kidney, that person does not have to be a match. Someone else in the transplant chain can be matched up to the person in need.
Thanks for sharing!
My Response
Thanks for this email. It was personal for us. My mother lived with us the last 5 years of her life after her kidneys failed. I have forwarded it to my extended family.
Bob