Is the Organ Transplant System Unfair?

"And while inadequate health care is a big problem in general for uninsured Americans, organ transplants raise unique ethical issues, said the authors of a report in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. While the uninsured or poor can't easily receive organs, they do donate them: As many as 25 percent of organs come from the uninsured, according to estimates by the authors of 'Health Insurance and Cardiac Transplantation: A Call for Reform.'"

Or, in other words, as the report states: "Individuals donate their hearts, although they themselves would not have been eligible to receive a transplant had they needed one."