The value of life

In today's WSJ there's a report about one of the hardest problem for society in my opinion, More Kidneys For Transplants May Go to Young . Related organization is trying to change the rule to distribute kidneys for transplant to recipients, here is the excerpt from WSJ:

The News: A new policy by the body that rations kidneys for transplant would favor recipients who have more years to gain from a new organ.

The Impact: Older people who have long waited for a kidney but have low life expectancy would lose out.

What's Next: The policy is being tweaked to satisfy both sides and will later be submitted for federal approval.

The basic idea of this reform is from the following sentence:

The value of 5 more years for a 90 years old patients is less than the value for 50 more years for a 9 years old one.

Is it reasonable? How about, if I made some changes like this

The value of 5 more years for a 90 years old patients, a Nobel laureate who still contributes to academics actively, is less than the value for 50 more years for a 9 years old one, who will become a serial killer in his 19.

Of course this the above is just a satire. However, one thing that matters is we can never compare life value among people. The value is subjective. It is never correct to compare people's life only base on their age.

One solution to this problem, as currently adopted, is to allocate those kidneys according to waiting time. Some people think its not efficient. But it is fair in some sense. Time is what everyone owns and everyone owns the same. Base on this fact it is fair in some sense, but may only be fair in some sense.

Another is to allocate by money. Patients who can spend the most to buy a kidney get the one, just like how black market works. It is efficient, and government can use the money to help developing more advanced medical technology. However, it is not fair for some people. Is that mean poor people deserving to die? No one will have the guts to adopt this kind of policy.

The other is reported as follows:

...the healthiest kidneys would be distributed through a formula that relies largely on net benefit, while the formula for kidneys coming from older or sicker donors would give greater weight to time on dialysis. In effect, this system would tell older people who have been on dialysis a long time that they could still have a shot at a kidney, but the chances would be much better if they took a lesser-quality one. Patients, working with their doctors, could calculate the odds and decide how poor a kidney they were willing to accept...

This one is sort of a mix and may be more practicable. It further separate kidneys to good and bad, and give different weights on them base on different systems.

I don't think there will be any solution that will satisfy everyone, because everyone is special to himself and to people who cares about him. Various novels/movies have made story on this kind of topic, such as my favorite film John Q, or the novel My sister's keeper.

I hope a nearly-perfect solution can be found soon. And I believe it won't be based on simple life value calculation or comparison at all.