Living Donor Protection Act of 2019

Last month, I shared with my readers (here) about a new, proposed Kansas law that would ban discrimination against living donors by health and life insurance companies. At that time, I also called on Congress and President Trump to pass a similar Federal law.

I’ve since learned that such a law is in process. Known as the Living Donor Protection Act of 2019, the legislation is sponsored in the U.S. House of Representatives by Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D- NY) and Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA). It’s sponsors in the U.S. Senate are Sen. Kirsten Gilibrand (D-NY) and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR).

The legislation will do 3 things:

1. Life, disability, and long-term care insurance companies would be prohibited from charging higher premiums to, or denying or limiting coverage to living donors.
2. The 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) will be amended to include living donation as a serious health condition. Therefore, employee absences for living donation at both public and private employers will now be covered under that law. 
3. U.S. Dept. of Human Services will be instructed to update all it’s materials concerning organ donation to reflect the new requirement. DHS will also have to encourage people to be organ donors.

I found the actual text of this legislation here, and I see one problem with it – it does NOT address health insurance. Health insurance MUST be included as part of #1 above. If it’s not, living donors will get hammered by the health insurance industry. You say, “But ObamaCare’s pre-existing condition clause has that covered.” What if ObamaCare was to get “repealed and replaced” at some point? What then. I’ll tell you what – living donors will get screwed by health insurance providers claiming “pre-existing condition”. Mark it down. It’s a safe bet.

Here is all the information about the bill on the Congressional website. 

I’m glad this law has been proposed. It’s way past time. It needs to be passed into law promptly, but with the amendment described above. Once properly amended, it should be a no-brainer, quick vote. All 535 members of Congress should be able to vote ‘yes’ and President Trump then sign it. This legislation transcends party lines and politics, because it’s simply the right thing to do.

Read More: PRNnewswire.com article titled “American Kidney Fund Urges Congress to Make 2019 the Year Living Donor Protection Act Becomes Law”