• PlasmaDistortion
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    811 months ago

    Blood transfusions cost a patient $1k-$4k and none of that money is given back to a donor. If they want people to donate, they need to either make transfusions cheap, or pay the donors.

    • @[email protected]
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      11 months ago

      Do you think it is Red Cross that is charging for transfusions?

      There’s plenty of reasons to dislike the ARC, but this isn’t one of them.

      Hell, if you’d stopped to think for half a second you’d realize all that will do is increase patient costs and endanger the blood supply.

      • @[email protected]
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        -111 months ago

        What is the relevant difference between unpaid whole blood donation and paid plasma donation?

        I would argue that the price of blood is inflated due to low supply. Increasing the supply by paying blood donors could very well reduce the unit price of blood, and thus patient costs.

        I reject your insinuation that paying people for donating blood poses a threat to the blood supply. The risks to human life posed by an insufficient blood supply are far greater than the risks arising from compensating donors.

        • @[email protected]
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          11 months ago

          Your uninformed opinion on proven medical fact is irrelevant, especially when you don’t even know that paid plasma isn’t directly transfused into patients, unlike actual donated plasma, and you think there’s supply and demand in action for fucking blood transfusions.

          Paid plasma is used for the manufacture of various products, anything from makeup to clotting factors. Which, as it happens, are notable for being an increased infection risk over directly transfused blood because their sources can’t be trusted to tell the truth about their risk factors.

          • @[email protected]
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            -111 months ago

            Quantify the risk, please.

            Blood can only be donated every 8 weeks, plasma twice a week. After donating blood, you can’t donate plasma for 8 weeks.

            The hypothetical “untrustworthy” plasma donors you’re talking about are earning about $640 in 8 weeks. I don’t see them switching to whole blood donation for $50 or $100 compensation. I’m not seeing how the risk to the blood supply is going to increase at all, let alone significantly enough to exceed the risk of critical shortages in the blood supply.

              • @[email protected]
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                -111 months ago

                Hell, if you’d stopped to think for half a second you’d realize all that will do is increase patient costs and endanger the blood supply.

                Still waiting on you to quantify that risk. This is the third time I’ve asked you to support your initial assertion.

                  • @[email protected]
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                    11 months ago

                    Yes, that is exactly what you are doing. Still waiting on you to demonstrate your initial claim that paying donors would endanger the blood supply.

                    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitchens's_razor

                    From the article:

                    The organization added there was a 7,000-unit shortfall in blood donations between Christmas Day and New Year’s Day alone.

                    One of the most distressing situations for a doctor is to have a hospital full of patients and an empty refrigerator without any blood products,” Pampee Young, chief medical officer of the Red Cross, said in a statement.

                    I leave you with two options:

                    1. Demonstrate that your claimed threat to the blood supply is more dangerous to patients than a shortage of 7000 units per week; or,

                    2. Drop this claimed threat as an argument against paying donors.

      • @Buddahriffic
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        11 months ago

        You think paying donorsproviders would reduce the number of people willing to givesell blood?

        • @[email protected]
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          11 months ago

          No. I think you’d rapidly find yourself in a situation like in West Africa, where the blood sellers typically have 3x the rate of having a blood born illness than the general population.

          There is one thing countries that refuse paid transfusables have in common, and that is a near-zero infection risk from blood transfusion. Something that is not true for countries that accept paid “donors.”

          And the dumbest thing of it all is it still wouldn’t reduce costs. It would increase them for patients, so why the hell do it at all?

          The problem is not that “donors” aren’t getting a cut. The problem is the boomers are the last generation that got massive public awareness campaigns about the importance of donating blood, and they’re aging out of the health requirements or just, you know, dying.

    • Drusas
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      511 months ago

      I recently needed a blood transfusion. The bill was $7,300. I paid $650 after insurance covered/negotiated the rest.

      Just sharing a data point.

      • PlasmaDistortion
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        711 months ago

        I am a blood donor and a future organ donor. More than anything I am frustrated that someone should have to even be billed for $7,300 for something I gave to them for free. Our health system is rigged against the people it claims to benefit.

        • Drusas
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          511 months ago

          It is frustrating and needs to be better regulated, but thank you for being a donor.

          As someone with chronic anemia, it’s very disheartening to see all of these people say that they will not donate because their donation gets sold. They would rather people like me just die than have capitalism get involved with their donation?

          I’d rather pay than not get the blood, thank you very much. The solution is legislation, not to simply stop donating.

    • @[email protected]
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      111 months ago

      The very least they could do would be to place a dollar value on the blood, and allow you to claim that value as a charitable donation, reducing your income tax burden.