There are ways of preventing theft if you have oversight. The only way to avoid oversight is to do it on the black market, which will be much harder when you have to compete against a legal market.
Families could also pressure people who don’t earn enough to sell their organs.
Maybe the majority of people who sell organs will be idiots who really shouldn’t at that price, but it’s better than not doing it at all.
You could put a price floor on it, although then idiots who don’t need them as much would start selling them, and there’d be costs with all the people waiting in line to sell. Subsidies wouldn’t work at all, since they’d pretty much end up going to the people buying the organs.
It’s unlikely there would be end-to-end oversight. Legal organ harvesters would probably not get looked at very closely (not enough money for inspection) and could easily pass off stolen organ as legitimately bought ones.
I disagree with your characterization of pressured people as idiots. “You aren’t bringing home the bacon and you have poor marriage prospects, so you’d better sell a kidney, or I’ll kick you out of the house” is not idiocy. But that’s not really the point.
I don’t see at all how a price floor helps with that.
It’s unlikely there would be end-to-end oversight.
Why not? It’s outright illegal in every country except one. I would expect it to be heavily regulated if it is ever allowed. If there are problems with stolen organs, they would definitely start regulating it.
Also, I haven’t seen anything saying that this is a problem in Iran. I read it has been a problem in India, so they made it illegal. It’s not the same as regulating, but it shows that they won’t allow that sort of thing to happen.
I disagree with your characterization of pressured people as idiots.
I just mean people selling their kidneys when it hurts them. “Idiots” meaning acting irrationally, not necessarily stupider than average.
I guess it’s possible for it to happen like you describe so that they have an additional incentive to sell, in a bad way. I don’t think that’s likely to happen.
I don’t see at all how a price floor helps with that.
It makes it more likely that it actually will be worth while for them. If it’s never worth while to sell your kidney for below $x, then setting a price floor above $x would at least mean that some of the people selling their kidneys would benefit.
There are ways of preventing theft if you have oversight. The only way to avoid oversight is to do it on the black market, which will be much harder when you have to compete against a legal market.
Maybe the majority of people who sell organs will be idiots who really shouldn’t at that price, but it’s better than not doing it at all.
You could put a price floor on it, although then idiots who don’t need them as much would start selling them, and there’d be costs with all the people waiting in line to sell. Subsidies wouldn’t work at all, since they’d pretty much end up going to the people buying the organs.
It’s unlikely there would be end-to-end oversight. Legal organ harvesters would probably not get looked at very closely (not enough money for inspection) and could easily pass off stolen organ as legitimately bought ones.
I disagree with your characterization of pressured people as idiots. “You aren’t bringing home the bacon and you have poor marriage prospects, so you’d better sell a kidney, or I’ll kick you out of the house” is not idiocy. But that’s not really the point.
I don’t see at all how a price floor helps with that.
Why not? It’s outright illegal in every country except one. I would expect it to be heavily regulated if it is ever allowed. If there are problems with stolen organs, they would definitely start regulating it.
Also, I haven’t seen anything saying that this is a problem in Iran. I read it has been a problem in India, so they made it illegal. It’s not the same as regulating, but it shows that they won’t allow that sort of thing to happen.
I just mean people selling their kidneys when it hurts them. “Idiots” meaning acting irrationally, not necessarily stupider than average.
I guess it’s possible for it to happen like you describe so that they have an additional incentive to sell, in a bad way. I don’t think that’s likely to happen.
It makes it more likely that it actually will be worth while for them. If it’s never worth while to sell your kidney for below $x, then setting a price floor above $x would at least mean that some of the people selling their kidneys would benefit.
So tax organ sales enough to pay for the inspection costs.