“Saying a liver transplant saved his life, Apple CEO Steve Jobs convinced California lawmakers to draft organ donation legislation, unveiled at Stanford’s Lucile Packard Children’s hospital Friday morning,” Lisa M. Krieger reports for The San Jose Mercury News. “The bill, SB 1395 by state Sen. Elaine Alquist, D-San Jose, requires Californians who are applying for or renewing their drivers license to affirmatively accept or decline becoming a donor. The current system takes a more passive approach, merely providing a pink sticker to affix to a license.”
“The legislation would also create the nation’s first ‘living donor registry,’ allowing altruistic people to sign up to offer one of their kidneys to a sick person. Kidney donation is relatively safe and does not shorten life span, Stanford doctors said,” Krieger reports.
Direct link to video here.
Jobs’ “decision to go public with his transplant to help others was applauded by the governor, who is advocating for passage of the bill,” Krieger reports. “‘Steve Jobs’ was very instrumental in getting us here today,’ said the governor. ‘Steve Jobs told my wife about his transplant and she talked to me. Then we had great phone conversations back and forth… He knew that others don’t have a plane waiting for them to get to a transplant.'”
Jobs said, ‘There were not enough livers in California to go around. I was advised by my Stanford doctors to enroll on a list at a Memphis hospital, because it was more favorable to get a liver there,” Krieger reports. “‘I was fortunate,’ he said because he had the ability to fly cross country in the four-hour window needed to transplant a healthy organ. ‘Last year, 400 other Californians died waiting. I could have died.'”
Krieger reports, “He called current system ‘an obscure process’ with ‘no one asking the simple question: Will you donate your organs? Of his current health, the whippet-thin Jobs told other transplant survivors who attended the Friday news conference, ‘I’m feeling fine. I almost died. It’s been a pretty good last few months.'”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Lynn W.” and “Lava_Head_UK” for the heads up.]
Now even Steve is snappier! There. I said it.
Great cause and thank goodness it wasn’t some liberal agenda! Long live Steve!
Hats off to Steve Jobs for pushing a very worthwhile issue
I think we would all be freaking out a lot more if we really knew how close we were to losing Steve forever. Thank God he got that liver.
Why not have a government sponsored cemetery(s) like Arlington, for our Organ donor heroes? Seems like that would stimulate interest.
Without an organ donor, we wouldn’t have Steve Jobs 3.0
Long as it’s not climate change.
Maybe Californians should stop drinking (alcohol) so we have a better supply of viable livers.
Isn’t health care reform suppose to save us all from dying? Isn’t that what everyone is saying that there are people dying because we have a broken health care system? Immortality will be here by Sunday. Yipee!
This is nothing new to me.
I have been a boner doner for over 30 years….
Not sure anybody would want my organs but they are welcome to them when I’m done with them. They are no good in the ground. Any religious objections are about as valid as believing in the Easter Bunny.
Apple Stores should set up Organ Donor registries in all their stores.
“We want to…<clap>…cut…..you up!”
I’m not an organ donor by conscious choice. I agree with them that the process ought to directly ask people “Yes” or “No”. No ambiguity.
I thought Steve Jobs missed a golden opportunity when he walked on stage after his liver transplant and didn’t say to the world that “Everyone should be able to get the kind of health car I got.” But he didn’t do it. Now that he’s joined with fellow millionaire Arnold Schwarzeneger to increase the number of organs available to people who can afford to have them installed, my esteem for Jobs has dropped dramatically. He may be techno and business guru but when it comes to life and death issues on a level of universal access, he’s at sea (on a yacht, of course). I really expect someone like the Terminator to harvest organs for the rich, but, really, Steve? Start talking everyone in, nobody out, no questions asked, universal, single payer health care and I’ll listen.
IDArgyll:
Why not? What do you have to lose? You won’t need them when you are dead and you can help someone else live.
Anyone else notice the timing of this the same day that Repo Men opened?
@ Gator
lol… Yeah, I was just thinking about that. But I was seriously burned by Repo: The Genetic Opera (worst. musical. ever.) so I’m a little spooked about the latest Jude Law vehicle. How many organ reposession movies do we need?
Funny how people become supporters of organ donation right about the time they need one to stay alive. Personally I believe that if you aren’t a registered organ donor than you should not be eligible to be the recipient of organ donation. Why should you get to take advantage of a system you aren’t willing to be a part of? (and yes I am aware that some poeple aren’t suitable donors but that can be taken into account). I am quite hapy for the doctors to take everything they can when I’m gone. WHy the hell should it be brued or burned if it can do some good? It’s a disgrace the organ donation rate.
Dan, it sounds like you work for a union. I’m sure you are rubbing your hands with glee at the thought of single payer becoming the only way to obtain health insurance. You will be thrilled when hundreds of thousands, even millions of employees of private health insurance companies, PPOs, third party administrators and healthcare technology companies lose their jobs because of that. You will also be ecstatic when countless numbers of hospitals close their doors, and doctors stop practicing. You’ll even be more happy when you see American manufacturers either move more jobs offshore or fall behind foreign competitors, because as proposed, ObamaCare will increase the health insurance costs of American businesses by up to 20 percent.
But then, probably being the union supporter that you are, you don’t mind. You’ll get orgasmic to watch perhaps the largest federal government bureaucracy bloom, lorded over by organizations like the Service Employees International Union. And it won’t matter a whit to you that the net impact to jobs will be decidedly negative, and that the unfunded liabilities (the added costs borne by American taxpayers) will make MediCare seem tame by comparison.
After all, America has endless pockets. So why not go even deeper in debt, and push down the federal government’s bond rating to junk status?
No, you’re absolutely right, Dan. Single payer for all. I for one will welcome our new jack-booted union thug overlords. And I can’t wait to take a number and get surly, indifferent customer service from a government employee, or rot away in a government-run hospital. THIS is the America I have dreamed of all my life. Long live the socialist liberal agenda!
Brulek
Isn’t that kind of like not being able to get health insurance after you get cancer?
What you are saying is, if you don’t ‘volunteer your organs’ (pay a premium when you are well) then you can’t ‘get on the list’ (have insurance coverage when needed).
That just might clear some of this up for a few…..naw.
I’ve had the pink donnor sticker on my Calif. drivers license since I was 18. (that was a looooooong time ago) But I’ve been inconsiderate and haven’t died yet.
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I’m also on the bone marrow donor list, something I encourage others to look into.
Oh, I almost forgot, thank you Memphis!!!
Dan Scanlan,
It is not incumbent on anyone to promote your political agenda simply because he’s made more money than you have. It is by no means a given that socializing medicine in the United States will mean that more people get organ transplants.
Who knew that when Apple board gave a plane to Steve it would save his life too! Sometimes “small things” can save life!
Don’t get me wrong – I think this is fantastic. But brace yourselves for another round of drive-by “let’s bash Steve” articles from Bloomberg, et al on this one. If you recall, Connie Guigliamo from Bloomberg went on a vendetta against Steve Jobs while he was recovering from his liver transplant surgery, and other bottom-feeding journalists quickly followed. I am sure they will try to make an example of him, and turn Steve’s words against him, even though what he is doing is for the best of causes.
I do hope I will be wrong.