Living organ donors get clearer protections, fairer reimbursement
H.R. 628 — Honor Our Living Donors Act · Filed by Jay Obernolte (R-CA) · 12 cosponsors · Introduced Jan 22, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill amends the federal organ donation reimbursement program to prohibit grant recipients from considering an organ recipient's income when deciding how much to reimburse living donors for their expenses. It also removes language suggesting organ recipients should expect to make payments, and requires annual reporting on whether the program has adequate funding to cover all donor expenses.
Why we flagged it
The bill's operative mechanism is a straightforward equity protection: it removes income-based discrimination in donor reimbursement and mandates transparency reporting. The functional effect is to strengthen protections for living organ donors.
What the text implies
- Removal of recipient-payment expectations may increase donation rates by eliminating implicit pressure on recipients to compensate donors, potentially expanding the donor pool.
- Annual reporting requirement creates public accountability for program funding adequacy, which may trigger appropriations pressure if shortfalls are documented.
- By decoupling reimbursement from recipient income, the bill may shift cost burden more fully onto the federal grant program rather than allowing recipient-based cost-sharing.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Living organ donors gain clearer protections: reimbursement is no longer reduced based on recipient income, and the program must report annually on funding adequacy. This removes a potential disincentive to donation and ensures equitable treatment of donors regardless of recipient wealth.
Named in the bill
Section 377 of the Public Health Service Act, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (Secretary), Living organ donors, Organ recipients, Congress
Where it stands
12 cosponsors: 10 Democrats, 2 Republicans.
- Jan 22, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Jan 22, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Energy and Commerce · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
7 lobbying clients named this bill on 9 disclosure filings across 3 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $6,753,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 10 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 86% of bills with at least one filing.
Jay Obernolte, the sponsor, reported $976,024 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- American Medical Association — $5,643,000 on 2 filings
- Poet, LLC — $770,000 on 1 filing
- National Kidney Foundation — $140,000 on 2 filings
- Nonprofit Kidney Care Alliance — $90,000 on 1 filing
- American Society of Nephrology — $60,000 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (2,031 characters) on Aug 24, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
“Living organ donors get clearer protections, fairer reimbursement” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/hr628 Report an error
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