While we have people waiting months, & even years, for simple, cost effictive treatments, I can see no justification for these hugely expensive treatments being given to a few.

Taking very large chunks of budget, & capacity to treat very few, is not a viable option for a system struggling to supply the simple, but critical requirement of the many.

Transplants should be on the user pay principal. Sticking hearts in old blokes, [like me] has no place in the public system, just because we can do it.

I have had seventy one years use of my organs but if someone wants something they are welcome.
Yes i am also a donor and I support the 'opt out' concept and yes, I believe in smaller Government too.
Will I ever give Sir Humphrey Appleby a serve!!

Banjo,

Thank you for your thoughts, and I'm sorry for your loss. It's interesting how potential donors and recipients don't really appreciate the emotion and gratitude involved in such a thing. The view from being on the receiving end of organ donation - via your partner - is humbling beyond what words - that I've found anyway - could describe.

Mine is seven years out from the double lung. In that time we met and she's experienced something that her sickness robbed from her previous to the transplant. If it wasn't for the donor and the family I would never have met her.

"Opt-out" is just another step on the road to totalitarianism.
The idea that the state decides what to do with your body unless you apply for an exemption is sinister.
The state does not own anybody's body.
And why shouldn't somebody, or their family, be able to decide who they want to donate their organs to.
Imagine the situation where a person's organs are used to prolong the life of the person who murdered the donor's child.
Stranger things have happened.
Should the brothers and sisters of the murdered child have to accept such a travesty?
What if a believer doesn't want their heart going to a pork-eating infidel?
Shouldn't we accept their faith-based or culturally-based wishes?

Sorry, I should have explained what opt-out means. It's fairly obvious you don't understand.

You still have the SAME choice as with opt-in. It's just that a LARGE percentage of the population who don't have issue with donation but haven't ticked the box purely because they haven't considered it and didn't wish to spend the time at the transport office before getting their licence. Once they got home they forgot about it. Opt-out forces you to make that choice. 'Opt-out' merely means, 'option out'. It DOESN'T mean, 'you have no choice other than donate and we're gonna take ur baibeez....". *eyes roll*

If for any reason - either faith, ignorance, general ickiness, or whatever - you CAN and should state that you don't wish to donate. End of story....but PERSONALLY I reckon you shouldn't be able to get organs, either.

...and it would only be default when you turn 18, or get your drivers licence, or whatever. You have to be an legal adult to make legally adult decisions...

Wish I had a buck for every person I met lined up at the transplant clinics who weren't donors.

Hasbeen,
I have seen many young kids, teens and young adults get Kidney transplants and I expect it is the same for other transplants. Why should they be on a user pays scheme? What about someone who is drunk or badly hurts himself being stupid, should he be on a user pays scheme as well? Should we continue costly treatment for a person with AIDS, who was silly enough to have unprotected sex?
Why would you single out transplant patients for a user pays scheme?

On age, where do you propose the cut off is to not do anymore medical procedures if it is expensive. Is it retirement age? I myself have decided that if I have a major organ problems or get cancer I would not have chemo or radiation treatment, but that is my decission. I reckon that i have had a reasonable innings and let nature take its course, helped with ample doses of scotch, rum and whatever took my fancy. Other old codgers may take a different view and that is their decission also. I know of quite a few blokes older than me who still have usefull lives and contribute much.

I don't know if you are being 'devils advocate' or that you have not given the matter much thought. Either way I disagree with you.