These challenges around organ donation have been recognized for some time, but they’ve never gotten the full attention they need from the decision makers in Washington. President Trump is changing that. The President is not going to let viable organs be wasted and see lives thrown away.
As Prepared for Delivery
Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us on this call today.
We’re excited to be announcing proposals today that have the potential to save and transform the lives of thousands of Americans in need of organ transplants.
Better health is the ultimate goal of President Trump’s healthcare vision. Tackling impactable health challenges is one of the key areas where we’re delivering on that vision, alongside reforming financing and delivering better value in healthcare.
There are few more transformative interventions for someone’s health than by replacing a failing organ with a healthy one, and that’s what we’re aiming to make much more common with our proposals today.
Each year, almost 8,000 Americans die waiting for a kidney or other organ transplant. Almost 100,000 Americans are on the waiting list for a kidney.
Yet there are thousands of organs that could be available for use, and many Americans who might be willing to become a generous living donor. Unfortunately, today, and for decades, we haven’t done everything we can to procure organs from deceased donors, and we haven’t been providing enough support for living donors.
These challenges around organ donation have been recognized for some time, but they’ve never gotten the full attention they need from the decision makers in Washington.
President Trump is changing that. The President is not going to let viable organs be wasted and see lives thrown away.
Today, under Administrator Verma’s leadership, CMS is proposing to reform how we measure the work of organ procurement organizations, the federally funded non-profit organizations that run organ procurement. Today, many of these OPOs are doing a great job, but some of them are not.
Rather than allowing OPOs to report on their own performance, we’re proposing objective, consistent criteria that will hold them accountable. The President’s proposed OPO reforms have the potential to give tens of thousands of Americans a chance at a better, longer, and healthier life.
We’re also proposing another rule to support people who become living donors. Many Americans may be interested in being living donors—like the incredibly generous kidney donor that saved my father’s life—but financial constraints stand in the way.
So, today, under the leadership of Administrator Engels, through the Health Resources and Services Administration, we are proposing bold steps to break down financial barriers to living donation, by reimbursing for a broader range of expenses, such as lost wages and potentially child care. When an American wishes to become a living donor, we don’t believe their financial situation should limit their generosity.
These two new proposals supplement the work already underway at HHS to advance American kidney health, under the President’s executive order, like the work of KidneyX, a public-private initiative designed to drive innovation in kidney care, including measures to improve dialysis and develop an artificial kidney.
Today’s proposals reflect President Trump’s commitment not only to improving the health of all Americans, but also to tackling neglected health challenges where we have the chance to make a real difference.
The initiative to advance American kidney health is a broad, HHS-wide effort, and we would not be making the historic progress that we’re seeing without the contributions of leadership and civil servants from across HHS, so I want to thank everyone involved in this effort for their dedication to this lifesaving work.
With that, I would like to turn things over to Administrator Seema Verma to explain the reforms CMS has proposed for OPOs.
Administrator Verma?
