organ markets Approximately 16 Americans die each day waiting for organ donations. Why? People needing organs generally have to go on a national waiting list and wait for bureaucrats to allocate them an organ, subject to the whims of the system. (Note the Clintonesque denial: "There is absolutely no evidence that he was not the most ill person in his region of the country on the day he got his liver transplant.") And there just aren't enough organs being offered. A good rule of thumb is that whenever there's a long queue for (i.e. shortage of) something, the price is too low. Various free-market types have endorsed the idea of creating a market in organs, and letting the price rise until the market clears. Ron Bailey, for example, has a nice piece advocating this in Reason. But the idea is not universally popular. A "group of doctors," writing in the New England Journal of Medicine, opposes financial incentives for organ donation:

"The fundamental truths of our society, of life and liberty, are values that should not have a monetary price. These values are degraded when a poor person feels compelled to risk death for the sole purpose of obtaining monetary payment for a body part," the team wrote.

This is another example of our collective squeamishness towards health issues, disguised by meaningless rhetoric about "fundamental truths." Do the doctors writing the letter charge their patients? Sounds to me like someone's putting a "monetary price" on life. The genius of a price system is that it allows the allocation of scarce resources without the need for an omniscient central planner. And those who -- by fiat -- declare certain areas of life "off limits" to the price system should bear some responsibility for explaining how they'd like things allocated. Would the letter-writing doctors prefer the status quo, with centralized planning, long queues, and dying patients?

Delmonico's team backed the idea of giving a minimal $300 reimbursement for the funeral expense of the deceased donor "as an expression of society's appreciation for the donation." Other ideas they supported included insuring donors are put at the top of the recipients' list if they themselves eventually need an organ and bestowing a congressional donor medal to "express appreciation on behalf of the American people to living donors and the families of deceased donors."

Apparently so.