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!

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/health/lives-forever-linked-through-kidney-transplant-chain-124.html?emc=eta1

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