Local Delaware woman testifies in hopes to protect kidney donors against discrimination

DELAWARE- One local woman testified this week for the Living Donor Protection Act with the hopes of protecting kidney donors against discrimination for insurance.

Nicole Scharf is a living kidney donor herself and is also the associate executive director with the National Kidney Foundation. She said the foundation has been working on this bill for some time now.

Scharf said about 1 in 4 people are discriminated against and denied for insurance coverage, including long term coverage and disability and life insurance.

“Aside from it saving money from medicare and increasing the awareness from people learning about living donation, I think that passing this bill is gonna bring kidney disease a little bit more into the light people don’t talk about it dialysis is hard, getting a transplant is hard,”

Scharf said the bill unanimously passed the Health and Human Services Committee and it’s currently on the ready list to go in front of the Senate.