Kidney Transplant Recipient Helped Enact Landmark Idaho legislation

Today the Naional Kidney Foundation of Utah & Idaho received the pen that Governor Butch Otter used to sign this bill!We are very grateful to our Idaho friends who saw this very important piece of legislation through.

Landmark Legislation Signed by Idaho Governor to Protect Living Organ Donors
Legislation is first of its kind in the nation
March 20, 2018

The National Kidney Foundation of Utah and Idaho is pleased to announce that Idaho Governor Butch Otter signed landmark legislation, S. 1302, to protect living organ donors from potential insurance discrimination. Too often living organ donors, who are healthier than the U.S. population at large, face insurance discrimination based solely on their
status as a living organ donor. “Today’s legislation in Idaho is the first of its kind in the nation designed to stop such discrimination. We hope soon every state in the nation follows suit. We were pleased to support the work of Marty Durand, an Idaho kidney transplant recipient and lawyer, who initiated the hearings on this bill” said Deen Vetterli, CEO National Kidney Foundation of Utah & Idaho.
The Idaho legislation, S. 1302, makes it unlawful to discriminate in the offering, issuance, cancellation, price or conditions of a policy, including the amount of coverage provided, based solely upon the status of the individual as a living organ
donor. The National Kidney Foundation of Utah & Idaho applauds Governor Otter for standing up for kidney patients, 100,000 of whom are waiting on a life-saving transplant right now.
The National Kidney Foundation of Utah & Idaho thanks Idaho State Senator Cherie Buckner-Webb for sponsoring the bill and owes a debt of gratitude to Committee leaders in the Senate and House for their efforts in support of organ donation. In 2017, nearly 20,000 Americans received a kidney transplant and one-third of these transplants were made possible by living donors.
Expanding living donation by removing barriers will help more people obtain a life-saving transplant. Organ donors undergo significant testing prior to being approved as a donor and must be in very good overall health before being permitted to donate. Most donors do not experience long term complications related to organ donation and therefore insurance discrimination is unjustified.
The Idaho legislation is modeled after The Living Donor Protection Act, introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives in March 2017 by Representative Jerry Nadler (D-NY) and Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/national-kidney-foundation-statement-on-landmark-legislation-signed-by-idaho-governor-to-protect-living-organ-donors-300616897.html