Inequality in U.S. Organ Transplants: Researchers Detail How the Wealthy Game the System

November 12, 2015

(Washington Post) – When Apple visionary Steve Jobs got a liver transplant in 2009 many wondered why the operation took place in Tennessee — more than 2,000 miles away from his home in Northern California. The answer has to do with money and the complexities of the U.S. transplant system. A typical patient with failing organs gets listed at only one transplant center close to them. But the rules set by the United Network for Organ Sharing, a nonprofit that manages the country’s organ transplant system under a federal government contract, allow people to apply for and get on wait lists at multiple centers simultaneously, and Jobs had the resources to do this.