PA initiates comp program for organ donation
After an eight-year delay, the state of Pennsylvania is proceeding with a scaled-down version of its program to offer financial benefits to organ donors or donors’ families.
The program will give a payment of $300 toward the costs of food and lodging for donors or donors’ families. The benefit is paid out of the state’s Organ Donation Awareness Trust Fund.
Proponents of the program say they hope it helps encourage donation, but the $300 is a far cry from the original 1993 plan to offer families $3,000 in funeral assistance.
"It won’t achieve what we wanted it to achieve," Howard M. Nathan, MD, told the Philadelphia Enquirer on May 27. Nathan is the president of the Gift of Life Donor Program, which coordinates organ transplants and donations for eastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey, and Delaware.
Nathan’s program consistently has some of the highest rates of consent for organ donation, but the need for donor organs still greatly outpaces organ availability, even in that region.
Trust fund for donors proposed
Originally, a state law designed by state Rep. Bill Robinson proposed establishing a trust fund to which people could contribute when applying for driver’s licenses or checking off a box on their state income tax returns. Part of the fund would be used for an organ-donation awareness campaign and part would pay up to $3,000 toward funeral expenses to a donor’s family. The program would be established as a three-year pilot program so that the state could also study the impact that the incentives had on donation rates.
Robinson has said he proposed the bill after learning of a mother who agreed to have her son’s organs donated, but who then had to hold fundraisers to get the money to give her child a burial.
Critics said the plan was too similar to offering cash for organs, which is illegal under federal law.
Supporters of the bill claim it is not a violation of federal law because the money would be paid directly to the funeral home and not directly to a person.
The current $300 payment will also be paid only to dining or lodging establishments and not directly to the donor’s family.
According to program records, 19 donors or donor families have applied for the assistance since the program was launched in January. t
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