Oklahoma delegation votes for organ transplant act

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- A bill that gives the authority for organ transplant policy to the private contractor that runs the system is good for Oklahoma, members of the state's congressional delegation

Wednesday, April 5th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- A bill that gives the authority for organ transplant policy to the private contractor that runs the system is good for Oklahoma, members of the state's congressional delegation say.

All six of Oklahoma's U.S. House members voted with the majority Tuesday as the House approved a bill reauthorizing the National Organ Transplant Act. The vote was 275-147.

"This important legislation protects states like Oklahoma, which has a state law giving priority to Oklahomans for dono organs received within the state borders," said Rep. Wes Watkins, who cosponsored the bill.

Watkins and fellow Republican Reps. Tom Coburn, Ernest Istook, Steve Largent, Frank Lucas and J.C. Watts voted for the reauthorization.

The legislation would strip the Department of Health and Human Services of its power to set transplant policy and comes after years of tension between HHS and the United Network for Organ Sharing, the private firm that has long run the transplant system under a government contract.

"I will not stand by and watch a federal government department override legislative law and tell me and the state of Oklahoma how we are going to allocate organs that come from donors in our own state," Lucas said. "Those decisions belong in the hands of doctors and medical scientists who understand the needs and requirements for successful organ donation, not a federal bureaucracy."

The House also agreed, by voice vote, to an amendment that kills controversial HHS regulations directing more organs to the sickest patients -- even if they live far from the donor.

President Clinton has threatened to veto the bill, which sides with the transplant network on virtually every point of dispute.

Istook said doctors, not bureaucrats, should determine who receives organ transplants.

"It's tough enough for doctors and hospitals to make these very difficult decisions based on medical judgment," he said. "We don't need the federal government making them instead." "This most personal of all issues, what happens to your body when you die, should not become a federal issue."