Getting A Little Political

As a young woman, I was proud to consider myself non-political. I was working toward changes, not to further a political party. As I matured, I began to realize that life is political. There was a strong connection between the changes I sought and the political parties working toward these changes.

I have noticed on social media that kidney life is also political. You’ve probably seen these posts yourself: governor so and so of fill-in-the-state has declared (s)he will present the donor bill today. Time for me to grow up and figure out exactly what that means and how it will help the kidney community.

Okay, so let’s find out what politics has to do with the kidney community. According to the National Kidney Foundation, these are three of the bills that will help those that either need transplants or would like to donate a living kidney:

“Living Donor Protection Act (H.R. 2923 / S. 1384)  to protect organ donors from discrimination in the issuing, pricing, or benefit levels for life, disability, or long-term insurance coverage due to their status as a living donor (health insurance discrimination is already prohibited). This legislation also would add living donation as a qualifying event under the Family and Medical Leave Act to provide job protection for the donor.

The Honor Our Living Donors (HOLD) Act (H.R.6020)  under current regulations, the organ recipient’s income is factored in when determining the donor’s eligibility for reimbursement. This legislation would remove this requirement of the organ recipient’s income when determining the donor’s eligibility for assistance with expenses and would require financial assistance to be determined only by the donor’s  income level.

Living Organ Donor Tax Credit Act (H.R. 6171)  would provide a federal tax credit of up to $5,000 for a living donor’s out-of-pocket expenses. This could include travel and lodging, follow-up care, and lost wages in connection with  organ donation.

Have you heard of NOTA? That’s the National Organ Transplant Act passed in 1984. The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services’ Health Resources & Services Administration explains:

“The U.S. Congress passed the National Organ Transplant Act (NOTA) in 1984. Congress passed (NOTA) to address the organ donation shortage and improve the organ matching process. The act established the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) to maintain a national system to match organs and individuals.

The act also called for the network to be operated by a private nonprofit under federal contract. The United Network for Organ Sharing currently operates the OPTN for HRSA.”

But now, there is a call to modify this act. It’s called The End Kidney Deaths Act:

“The End Kidney Deaths Act is a ten year pilot program to provide a $10,000 refundable tax credit per year for five years ($50,000 total) to living kidney donors who donate kidneys to strangers, those waiting the longest on the kidney waitlist. By the tenth year after the passage of the End Kidney Deaths Act, an estimated 60,000-100,000 Americans who were dying on the waitlist will instead have healthy kidneys, and taxpayers will have saved billions of tax dollars.” 

I turned to Kidney Care Partners to find out why these acts are so important:

“Today, there are an estimated 35.5 million Americans who are living with chronic kidney disease (CKD), which untreated, can ultimately progress to kidney failure. As many as 9 in 10 adults with kidney disease are not aware they have it and often suffer no apparent symptoms. Millions more individuals are at risk of developing this deadly disease and are not aware of their risks.

Each year in the United States, more than 135,000 Americans are diagnosed with kidney failure (or End Stage Renal Disease) – an irreversible condition which is fatal without a kidney transplant or life-sustaining dialysis treatments. Currently, more than 800,000 Americans suffer from ESRD and more than 550,000 are on dialysis, and well over 200,000 living with a kidney transplant.”

This struck a chord for me, so I ran around the internet looking for more bills to help kidney patients… and I found them. This one interested me the most since I am neither a transplantee nor a dialysis patient. It’s also from the Kidney Care Partners site:

“If passed, this legislation support [sic] efforts to prevent and better understand chronic kidney disease (CKD) by ensuring appropriate reimbursement for quality care and improve patient access to the best drugs, technology and innovations along the kidney care continuum.

The legislation would:

• Boost kidney disease prevention efforts by adding CKD screening to the annual wellness benefit to allow Medicare beneficiaries at risk for kidney disease or kidney failure to screen for the disease and seek treatment to slow the progression if diagnosed.
• Expand access to education resources by expanding the Medicare Kidney Disease Education benefit to allow dialysis facilities to provide kidney disease education services and offer services to Medicare beneficiaries with Stage 5 CKD who are not yet on dialysis.
• Incentivize innovation by requiring the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to provide a long-term payment pathway for new drugs, biologics, devices, or other technologies.
• Develop a sustainable dialysis infrastructure and address the workforce crisis by ensuring that kidney care providers receive accurate annual payment updates and fostering the nephrology pipeline by including nephrologists and non-physician practitioners in the National Health Service Corp loan forgiveness program.
• Expand patient choice and coverage by guaranteeing access to Medigap policies for Medicare beneficiaries with kidney failure.”

Can you imagine if your physician regularly added kidney disease tests to your regularly scheduled blood tests and urine tests? Blood is being drawn anyway and you have to pee into the cup anyway, so why not add those tests? By the way, I’ve been advocating these changes for years.

Until next week,

Keep living your life!