Some economists have advocated going as far as allowing the sale of organs. The New York Times reported that "Gary Becker and Julio Jorge Elias argued in a recent paper that monetary incentives would increase the supply of organs for transplant sufficiently to eliminate the very large queues in organ markets, and the suffering and deaths of many of those waiting, without increasing the total cost of transplant surgery by more than 12 percent." Iran allows the sale of kidneys and has no waiting list. Organ futures have been proposed to incentivise donation through direct or indirect compensation. The primary argument against such proposals is a moral one; as the article notes, many find such a suggestion repugnant. As the National Kidney Foundation puts it, "Offering direct or indirect economic benefits in exchange for organ donation is inconsistent with our values as a society. Any attempt to assign a monetary value to the human body, or body parts, either arbitrarily, or through market forces, diminishes human dignity." An opt-out system ("dissent solution"), in which a potential donor or his/her relatives must take specific action to be excluded from organ donation, rather than specific action to be included. This model is used in several European countries, such as Austria, which has a registration rate eight times that of Germany, which uses an opt-in system. Social incentive programs, wherein members sign a legal agreement to direct their organs first to other members who are on the transplant waiting list.
The head surgeon, Dr. Michael Phelan, explained that "the ongoing shortage of organs from deceased donors, and the high risk of dying while waiting for a transplant, prompted five donors and recipients to push ahead with the surgery." Several organizations such as the American Kidney Fund are pushing for opt-out organ donation in the United States. Donor Leave Laws
In addition to their sick and annual leave, federal executive agency employees are entitled to 30 days paid leave for organ donation. Thirty-two states (excluding only Alabama, Connecticut, Florida, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Vermont, and Wyoming) and the District of Columbia also offer paid leave for state employees. Five states (California, Hawaii, Louisiana, Minnesota, and Oregon) require certain private employers to provide paid leave for employees for organ or bone marrow donation, and seven others (Arkansas, Connecticut, Maine, Nebraska, New York, South Carolina, and West Virginia) either require employers to provide unpaid leave, or encourage employers to provide leave, for organ or bone marrow donation.A bill in the US House of Representatives, the Living Donor Protection Act (introduced in 2016, then reintroduced in 2017), would amend the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 to provide leave under the act for an organ donor. If successful, this new law would permit "eligible employee" organ donors to receive up to 12 work weeks of leave in a 12-month period. Tax incentives
Nineteen US states and the District of Columbia provide tax incentives for organ donation.