Roy Blunt: “Missourians and many of our closest neighbors waiting for the life-changing moment that happens when you have a liver…”

“Missourians and many of our closest neighbors waiting for the life-changing moment that happens when you have a liver transplant now have to have one more hurdle in the process that they have to go through to make that happen. There is a new, and I think terribly flawed, organ allocation policy. Senator Moran and I have really led an effort to slow this down. We have both been the chairman of the Health and Human Services Appropriations Committee. We understand how that agency is supposed to work and how some of these healthcare issues are supposed to be handled. Frankly, I don't think either one of us think this one has been handled in the right way. With the policy we see today, nearly half the country is disadvantaged by a new policy that has been put in place. It used to be that when someone donated a liver, those organs were matched with the transplant candidates, first at the local level, then regionally, and finally at the national level. It is my belief, and I think Senator Moran's belief, that when you know your neighbors are going to benefit from that decision, you are more likely to make the decision that you want to be part of that organ donor community. In the neighborhood where we live and where the Presiding Officer lives, I think people have approached this in a pretty dynamic way, wanting to be part of that. In Missouri, 17 percent of people are organ donors or at least willing to be organ donors.…”