I gave blood yesterday...no, no, thank you, please hold your applause...Anyway I gave blood yesterday and got to thinking, perhaps due to lack of blood flow to my brain, how grand it would be if everyone who was able donate blood on a regular basis or even just gave it a shot. It's really not difficult or unpleasant. I mean I am a particularly weak individual, and I have never had any trouble during or after donation. Maybe the government should require all able-bodied citizens above a certain age to regularly be screened for blood donation eligibility, and if they pass the criteria, be compelled to "donate" a pint under penalty of law. Maybe a simple tax on anyone who didn't show up for screening and a stiffer one for anyone who passed screening and didn't submit to the needle. You would probably want to impose a stiffer penalty (tax, I meant tax, sorry) on anyone who willfully made themselves ineligible through international travel, living in the UK for a period exceeding 5 years, having sex for money, sharing an apartment with someone who has hepatitis etc. Based on recent precedent, this should all be quite constitutional in the US.
Just think of the potential savings, not just in lives, but more importantly, in the federal budget. I'm no medical expert, but it should be fairly straight forward to come up with a figure spelling out the cost savings for Mr. John Q. Taxpayer due to the ready access to compatible blood in the ER, since he is paying for so many of those visits for the uninsured and the insurance for the insured (Author's Note: remind me to draft a plan on an O negative blood type breeding program). Further, think of all the money it will save the blood banks. If everyone is forced (sorry, incentivized) to give blood, they can stop calling me three times a day and asking me to donate.
More thoughts on the subject -
More on Mandatory Blood Donation
Sorry, but I, for one, cannot think of anything more invasive the government can do to me than actually force me to take something from my body and give it to them.
ReplyDeleteThat is the ultimate tyranny.
If there is a shortage of blood, then they can offer money for it. Blood banks charge hospitals for blood, let them charge a little more and buy the blood they need. There will be plenty.
Anonymous,
DeleteOf course I could not possibly agree more. I intended for this post to be satirical in nature and expected that to be clearly understood in the context of the rest of the site. About 90% of it is completely tongue-in-cheek: the idea that the federal deficit is more important than human lives, the idea of a tax as a penalty, forced "donation", the recent precedent of the ruling on the health care law and being the first the march to complete fascism. I'm sorry if this was not clear.
Good to hear you do not really believe in this.
ReplyDeleteHere's a few facts about the blood industry:
1. A pint is collected at a cost of $15/pint and sold for $200-$300 to hospitals.
2. Most of the blood collected is not sold to hospitals and does not save lives.
3. Blood is mostly sold to the industry, to pharmaceutical companies that extract
certain fractions for inclusion / as a base of certain products, to the cosmetics
industry.
4. Blood donations are not anonymous. Samples of your blood tagged _with_ your identity
are sold to research groups public and privately funded.
Think twice about donating ... you're most likely not going to save lives.
-X
Of course I don't believe in mandatory donation, but I have up to this point thought that it was a useful personal endeavor. Thank you for providing this information. Please if you don't mind, provide some background on the information you have listed here. I would love to see your sources, and I think it would be of interest to other readers as well.
Delete