WASHINGTON - Professionals in the medical community are discussing a controversial proposal that would change the way people are placed on the national organ donor waiting list.

An organ donor network called LifeSharers wants the list to give preference to patients who signed up to be organ donors before they became sick.

More than 100,000 people are now awaiting transplants in the United States, but less than 20 percent will get the life-altering operation they need.

Jill Louison is trying to get on the transplant list after just receiving her mother's kidney in 2005. "Being sick and not having an organ that works you could you know, could be tomorrow, could be next week," she said.

Louison and many other patients are talking about a proposal that would change the way people are placed on the waiting list. In Louison's case, she has been a donor since she was a teenager. "I think it's fair --give some, get some back," she said. "That's going to determine if they live or die."

Right now, the waiting list is set up so the sickest patients are the highest priority. At Georgetown University Hospital, transplant surgeon Keith Melancon expects that's how it'll stay. "But what I do like about the proposal, it is that it gets to what is the problem in is we don't have enough deceased donors," Melancon noted.

Lusby, Md. resident William Biggar is hoping to receive a kidney and pancreas. Though he never registered to be a donor, he thinks the proposal is fair. "If you've been willing to give an organ all this time, maybe you should get some extra points," he said.

The United Network for Organ Sharing, the non-profit organization that maintains the national waiting list, does not agree with the proposal. They believe it punishes transplant candidates who haven't made the personal decision to donate themselves.

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