The aid hardly pays the bills (In NY even the Dead get welfare - and they need more!)

The Press Republican ^ | 12/10/03

[qam1]

Funeral homes in New York state continue to be severely underpaid for conducting funerals and burials for people unable to pay. This is another example of professionals trying to make a living being obliged by the state to practically give their services away.

The state requires that every person who dies be given a dignified burial, as it should. The trouble is that it imposes badly on the people who must provide the service.

Funeral-home directors say that the average funeral costs $7,000. That is not the absolute, rock-bottom cost. That is the average cost. The amount a funeral director would have to get just to break even would probably be in the range of $5,000 to $5,500. In Clinton County, when a funeral home conducts a funeral and burial for someone on Social Services, it is reimbursed a measly $1,675. And that is after a raise passed by the County Legislature last week. This is disgraceful.

Yet funeral homes do their work, generally without complaining. The state pays the full price to the dealer of the vault and to the cemetery. Only the funeral director gets so badly treated, having to settle for less than a quarter of actual costs to be paid. It’s hard to imagine any business person being so badly put upon by state fiat. Doctors complain that Medicaid and Medicare reimbursements don’t cover their costs, but some doctors don’t accept those patients. Funeral homes have no choice.

In truth, it’s not as if the funeral homes have no recourse whatsover. They can make up for the heavy losses in Social Services-paid funerals by raising their prices to paying customers. If they didn’t, many would be forced out of business. Still, the paltry reimbursement is an enormous imposition on the funeral homes, as well as their clientele.

Every human being deserves to be laid to rest in a respectable fashion. The state is unquestionably doing the right thing in demanding that this be carried out. But it shouldn’t stop there and leave the funeral directors to make the sacrifices that directive imposes.

The sad fact is that, in the past three decades, the reimbursement level has risen by only a few hundred dollars. No one seems to pay attention, so a scandalous custom has been allowed to persist even though no one would argue it is right.

If funeral directors comprised a more powerful voting constituency, this wrong would have been righted long ago. As they do not, this gross inequity continues unchallenged. Shame on the state for that.

[freedomlover]

Gosh the next thing you know someone will start scrimping on cremation and just pile the bodies up somewhere.

[tessalu]

Booooooooooooooooo hooooooooooooooooooo!

[Calpernia]

http://www.courier-tribune.com/nws/pugh0303.html

Asheboro's Pugh: State crematory practices strict
By J.D. Walker
Staff Writer, The Courier-Tribune

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ASHEBORO - Atrocities discovered at a Georgia-based crematory have some people questioning crematory practices in North Carolina.

(snip)

North Carolina's strict rules came as a reaction to an incident at a crematory outside Raleigh in the 1980s, said Pugh. A crematory was discovered to be housing bodies in vans and other places on the property. It was on a much, much smaller scale that the scandal in Georgia, said Pugh, but it provoked greater industry and state review of crematory practices.

(snip)

[shotgun]

Why not just bury them face down in the city / state parks and use them for bicycle stands?

[The Great RJ]

While the mark up on funeral services is astronomical, the government should not expect a for profit business to give away its services for free or sell them at an economic loss. Can't someone from the funeral industry price out what the basic minimum services actually cost, tack on a 5% profit margin and make the deal simple for the state? For unclaimed or unidentified dead why not simple cremation and scattering of their ashes in a dignified manner?

[Sacajaweau]

Our local funeral director drives a Lexis.

[T Minus Four]

I don't know why a person has to be in a silk-lined mahogany casket to be "buried with dignity". Put them in a plain pine box, no embalming, makeup, etc, conduct a dignified service, and put them in the ground. That's how I want to go. I think the funeral industy is a huge rip-off.

[farmguy]

Two words ......."Soylent Green"

[BabsC]

I think the funeral industy is a huge rip-off.

Here in GA it's a racket. A few years back a person was able to purchase a large amount of caskets and was selling them cheaper than the funeral homes. They had to fight a state law in order to sell them as at that time only "state licensed" funeral homes could sell these things.

I believe that has now changed and brought a lot of attention to the mark ups by funeral homes and "add-on" services that really add up.

I want to be buried vertically, wrapped in linen and a hard wood tree planted where I stand. Too bad it won't happen that way, I'll end up with cremation.

[cupcakes]

Every human being deserves to be laid to rest in a respectable fashion
____________

Then why don't people save for themselves so they can be buried in what they deam is a respectable fashion? They are trying to make folks feel pity, but why should I feel pity for someone who may have had 50, 60 years to plan a dignified burial for themselves? And why should I feel pity for a family that has folks show up with their nails done, but couldn't be bothered to kick in a couple hundred bucks to make grandpa's funeral dignified? IE why should I give a damn via my tax dollars if this person's own family doesn't give a damn to give them a nice funeral.

[T Minus Four]

There are actually tons of articles on the internet that can help people wade thru the funeral industry's practices. The trick is not to wait until your loved one dies, and you have two days to decide while grieving.

Many standard practices are NOT required by law, such as embalming. I have strict orders that if anyone embalms me, then props me up in an open casket for people to gawk at, I will come back and haunt them!!!

Check your state laws regarding caskets, embalming, grave liners, etc, etc, then try to find out which funeral homes in the area you live are willing to accept the idea that the amount of money spent on a funeral doesn't equal the love (or guilt) you felt for the person who has died.

[T Minus Four]

Click here for a good place to start