Sponsors (13)
The bill increases equitable, needs-based donor reimbursement and program transparency to expand and support living donation, but does so at the cost of higher program spending, greater taxpayer exposure, and added oversight and administrative burdens.
Low-income and uninsured transplant candidates will face the same donor-reimbursement eligibility regardless of the recipient's income, increasing equitable access to donor support.
Living organ donors will be reimbursed based on documented needs rather than recipient circumstances, reducing financial barriers to donation and thereby likely increasing living donations and improving transplant access.
Clarifying statutory placement and sentence structure reduces legal ambiguity for HHS, grant applicants, and administrators, improving consistency and efficiency in program administration.
States, grant programs, and taxpayers may face higher costs because programs can no longer screen reimbursements by recipient income, potentially forcing cuts or reallocation of funding for other transplant services.
Removing a categorical exclusion could allow entities or individuals the law previously intended to bar to receive federal grant funds, risking misuse of funds, undermining prior policy judgments, and increasing HHS oversight and compliance burdens.
Requiring HHS to produce detailed annual reports imposes administrative burden and costs on the agency, diverting staff time and resources from other activities.
Based on analysis of 4 sections of legislative text.
Bars consideration of transplant recipients' income when reimbursing living donors, removes one award exclusion, and requires annual HHS reporting on reimbursement adequacy.
Prohibits grant recipients from denying or reducing travel, subsistence, or incidental nonmedical reimbursements to living organ donors based on the organ recipient’s income, narrows one statutory exclusion for award eligibility, and requires HHS to publish an annual report assessing whether grant funding was adequate to fully reimburse donors and estimating any shortfalls. The bill mainly reorganizes an existing rule into its own statutory subsection, removes a categorical exclusion from the list of circumstances barring awards, and adds a yearly reporting requirement to measure gaps between reimbursement need and grant funding.
Official title: To amend the Public Health Service Act to eliminate consideration of the income of organ recipients in providing reimbursement of expenses to donating individuals, and for other purposes.
Introduced January 22, 2025 by Jay Obernolte · Last progress January 22, 2025