Red Cross facing severe blood shortage
Red Cross facing severe blood shortage
The American Red Cross sounded the alarm Sunday over a severe blood shortage facing the U.S. as the number of donors dropped to the lowest levels in two decades. The Red Cross said in an anno…
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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.
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.
Maybe if our healthcare industry wasn't designed to profit capitalists off death and suffering, there would be no such reservations.
I say this as someone who used to donate regularly until I learned how my donated blood was then being ransomed for private profit against sick people that need it.
You think paying
donorsproviders would reduce the number of people willing togivesell blood?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.
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.
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.
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.
https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Shifting-of-the-Burden-of-Proof
Nice try, but no.
Defend your claim that established practice is safe to change. Defend your assertion that the only solution is to open up paid transfusions because the donations are down, compared to efforts to increase those donations instead.
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.
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:
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Demonstrate that your claimed threat to the blood supply is more dangerous to patients than a shortage of 7000 units per week; or,
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Drop this claimed threat as an argument against paying donors.
Yes, exactly:
Description: Making a claim that needs justification, then demanding that the opponent justifies the opposite of the claim.
In your initial response, you made a claim that needs justification:
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.
You are now demanding that I either accept your unsubstantiated claim, or prove it false. As the link you have spammed in response demonstrates, your argument is fallacious, and the burden of proving your initial claim rests with you.
The only claim arising before yours is the idea that paying people for blood could increase the blood supply. Technically, that claim does require proof, and technically, that proof has not been provided. But, the concept of "basic economics" has been so well demonstrated that refusing to accept that premise would be a profound exercise of intellectual dishonesty.
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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.
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.
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.
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.