Would the auction of organs on eBay or other auction sites result in a perfectly competitve market for organs?

[House825]

No, Auctioning organs does not work because only the rich would receive the organs. No one would sell their kidney to a poor person for $50 when they could get $150,000 from a rich person. It would punish the poor.

Auctioning organs in the present for use after a person dies would not work at all. Most organs that can be used come from people who died as a result of some type of trauma to the head; they are brain dead (which is the same as dead) and their blood is kept circulating by using a ventilator. If the blood is not kept circulating, the organs become unusable. So let's say I died from a heart attack and no one found me for a few hours. My blood was not circulating, so the organs could not be used. Since no one knows in what manner I would die, they could not auction organs that might not be usable.

I received a kidney and pancreas transplant in 2005. I am now a trained volunteer on donation.