Would you give up your kidney for $50,000?
Selling body parts isn't the sort of feel good policy we usually get into here at good on paper.
But here we are.
I'm bringing this up for good reason.
In 2022, about 12 people in need of a kidney transplant died every day.
And Currently more than 90,000Americans are waiting for a kidney transplant.
Dialysis, the runner up treatment for kidney failure, is a poor substitute for a transplant.
You're more likely to die or experience what's called a cardiovascular event,
not to mention the various quality of life issues that come with having to go to the hospital
or another treatment center all the time to get your blood processed.
But there are simply not enough kidneys to go around, even though most of us have one to spare.
Kidney donation is uncommon and it's easy to understand why.
It requires months of planning and medical testing, a painful surgery and recovery.
It's a lot.
Well, in 2016, my friend Dylan Matthews, a reporter for Vox,
became one of 5,633 people in the United States to donate a kidney that year.
But unlike the vast majority of those people, Dylan didn't do this for a family member or a friend.
He's one of a small set of people who donated his kidney in a non directed to a stranger.
And while he didn't get paid,
he's recently written about a bill to make the US one of the first countries