Alex Tabarrok notes that Singapore is now allowing compensation for kidneys. And Stephen Dubner summarizes a study on organ donation by a team of Harvard University researchers:
…in a nutshell: The people who receive donated organs in the U.S. nearly always have health insurance, while a significant fraction of the people who donate the organs do not. In other words: poorer people are more willing to give organs than they are likely to receive them.
…Anti-market arguments usually include the concern that poor people would be compelled to sell organs while rich people never would. As true as this may be — may be — it ignores what is to me the more salient point: a market would also give many more poor people the opportunity to get organs, not just give them.
The Dish 