Richard Epstein applies standard economics to a nonstandard issue.
about 79,000 people are awaiting organ transplants; about 5,500 die each year in part because price is not allowed to rise to bring supply and demand back into equilibrium.
Now there are glimmerings that all this might change. The American Medical Association's Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs may ...propose, cautiously and on an experimental basis, a program that will allow the payment of small sums in the neighborhood of $300 to $3,000 for cadaveric organs in an effort to overcome the current acute organ shortfall.
Discussion Question. Paying people to donate organs sounds bad. Why is not paying them even worse?
