It was 2007 when David Sultzer’s phone rang with a very important call.

Sultzer, a retired military intelligence officer and defense contractor, was a match for his mother, who was in need of a kidney transplant.

"I said, where do I sign, and when do I show up?" he recalled in an interview with Spectrum News. "It was…all that I could do to give a kidney to my mother."

But that small victory was tempered by the reality that his father was on dialysis, and was also waiting for a new kidney. 

"When they were rolling me into surgery, I told my dad, 'hey, you can have the other one if you want it,' and he said, 'well, that would mean you wouldn't live any lives,'" recalled Sultzer. "'Well, hey, you're the one who gave me life so I can give it right back to you.'"

"It was very painful to watch my dad go through that. But it relieved my mother, took her off of dialysis, and then she became the main caregiver for my dad."

Sultzer was able to give the gift of life to his mother, but his father kept waiting.

"He passed away waiting for that kidney. Like many people in America do today."

April is National Donate Life month to spread awareness about organ, eye, and tissue donation and honor those who gave the gift of life. The National Kidney Foundation estimates that more than 90,000 people are waiting for a kidney donation.

"There's a pretty significant supply and demand issue when it comes to organs for transplant," explained Sharon Pearce, Senior Vice President of Government Relations at the National Kidney Foundation. "Living donors are a critical part of our strategy to get more people transplanted to give kidney patients that second chance at life."

"Young people, old people, Black, white, Asian, Hispanic, it doesn't matter. Your population, your race, your demographic, your age – this disease can affect you and really change not only your life, but the life of your caregivers," explained Sultzer, who became a patient advocate after his living organ donation. 

While thousands of patients continue to hope for a life-saving transplant, there is a bipartisan effort in Washington to help elevate some of the burden.

The Honor Our Living Donors Act, is a bipartisan bill led by Rep. Jay Obernolte, R-Calif., and Rep. Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., that aims to remove some of the financial barriers that may currently be holding back someone from considering donating. Right now, a living donor can only be reimbursed by the National Living Donor Assistance Center if the income of the recipient and donor combined is less than 350% of the Department of Health and Human Services' poverty guideline, which equates to roughly $51,000 a year. The HOLD Act would no longer limit the donor’s eligibility for reimbursement based on the income of the recipient. 

"It makes no sense to include the income of the recipient in this calculation. That has nothing to do with whether or not the organ donor is going to be able to make ends meet in donating the organ," Obernolte explained in a recent House hearing. "And so that's what this bill does. It makes that 350% means test apply only to the income of the donor, not the income of the recipient."

"We must support heroic living donors who give the incredible gift of life to those in need. This legislation would encourage more life-saving donations, improve health outcomes, and ultimately reduce costs to Medicare and our health care system," DelBene said in a press release when the bill was first introduced.

In that same release, Obernolte and DelBene’s offices estimated that by reducing the barriers to living donation, not only would it help patients in need find donors, but it could cut Medicare spending for dialysis and related care, which costs Medicare about $50 billion each year.

Pearce says that the National Kidney Foundation, which has expressed public support for the bill, sees the HOLD Act as a sign of hope.

"Typically, there's out-of-pocket costs associated with being evaluated, there's insurance costs for life and disability insurance, and there's, you know, taking time off work, which can be a real barrier for people who may not be, you know, may not have a lot of paid leave or may not have, you know, the ability to step away from work for 4 to 6 weeks to recover," said Pearce. "We are hopeful that this would help increase the number of people who are willing to step forward and donate a kidney."

The bill is making its way through Congress, but has yet to get a floor vote in the House. While the support from the federal government is welcome, patient advocates like Sultzer are still carrying on their crusade to help others find donors. His mother has since passed, but he knows the impact living donation can have on a family.

"I say all the time when I speak to people in these different advocate environments, hey, we don't want someone to die so that someone else can live,'" said Sultzer. "Some people are apprehensive about surgery itself. Some people are apprehensive about what's next: How do I live with one kidney? And I just tell them, hey, take a look. This is how you live with one kidney. Because even after I gave my kidney, I still deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq several times."

"People, I think, they get stuck on one thing and they and they're just stuck on that branch and they need someone to talk to them to guide them through it," added Sultzer.

"It's just giving life to someone that you love. And it really was that experience."

For more information about organ donation, click here.

For more information about the National Kidney Foundation, click here.

Note: This story has been updated with new figures reflecting how many people are waiting for a kidney donation.