211

President Joe Biden is set to sign into law a new bill that the White House says will save lives for Americans in need of an organ transplant.

Biden on Friday will sign a bipartisan piece of legislation that will reform the organ transplant system, the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, and waiting process as more than 100,000 people await a transplant. The bill passed the House and Senate on a bipartisan basis in July.

“Everybody knows the system has been broken for years with heartbreaking consequences. Now with the president’s signature, we are taking significant steps to improve it,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Friday.

The law, Jean-Pierre said, “will break up the current monopoly system harnessing competition to allow HHS (the Department of Health and Human Services) to contract with the best entities to provide a more efficient system for the people it serves.”

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] themeatbridge@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago

What it does is increase the spending limits and allows for wider discretion in doling out the contracts. But that's it. That's the bill. It does not modernize the database, it does not address racial disparities in organ distribution, it does not improve transparency or provide access to collected data or save lives or increase awareness outreach. Those are all the victories that the authors and supporters of the bill are claiming. Their dancing around the ring with their arms raised, like they fixed the OPTN and defeated the evil UNOS Monopoly.

UNOS supports the bill, and will probably get more contracts out of it.

This bill does not solve problems. It creates opportunities.

[-] krellor@kbin.social 7 points 1 year ago

I don't see how you addressed my point that the change doesn't in and of itself represent deregulation. Surely opening the process up to more bidders and allowing the government to more directly prioritize initiatives isn't deregulation.

Setting that aside, I only have a cursory knowledge of the background from some NYT articles I read in the spring. Those articles mentioned the concerns you give around inequality and outdated technology and systems. My understanding is that one of the first planned contracts to go to bid is to modernize the technology systems, which seems to at least be a start at addressing known deficiencies. Additionally, more targeted contracts allow the government to review for more specific goals and outcomes rather than a monolithic overarching agreement.

It's easy to list all the negative things that could happen with the process. But like you say, this bill itself doesn't solve the problems, it creates opportunities. I see opportunities to fix the problems. Your are welcome to focus on the negative and assume this is just a financial play. Both of us are predicting the future and time will tell.

this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2023
211 points (98.2% liked)

politics

19088 readers
1648 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

  1. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  2. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  3. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
  4. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  5. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS