Posted on 10/10/2009 2:46:18 PM PDT by reaganaut1
Coroners and medical examiners across the country are reporting spikes in the number of unclaimed bodies and indigent burials, with states, counties and private funeral homes having to foot the bill when families cannot.
The increase comes as governments short on cash are cutting other social service programs, with some municipalities dipping into emergency and reserve funds to help cover the costs of burials or cremations.
Oregon, for example, has seen a 50 percent increase in the number of unclaimed bodies over the past few years, the majority left by families who say they cannot afford services. “There are more people in our cooler for a longer period of time,” said Dr. Karen Gunson, the state’s medical examiner. “It’s not that we’re not finding families, but that the families are having a harder time coming up with funds to cover burial or cremation costs.”
About a dozen states now subsidize the burial or cremation of unclaimed bodies, including Illinois, Massachusetts, West Virginia and Wisconsin. Most of the state programs provide disposition services to people on Medicaid, a cost that has grown along with Medicaid rolls.
Financing in Oregon comes from fees paid to register the deaths with the state. The state legislature in June voted to raise the filing fee for death certificates to $20 from $7, to help offset the increased costs of state cremations, which cost $450.
“I’ve been here for 24 years, and I can’t remember something like this happening before,” Dr. Gunson said.
Already in 2009, Wisconsin has paid for 15 percent more cremations than it did last year, as the number of Medicaid recipients grew by more than 95,000 people since the end of January, said Stephanie Smiley, a spokeswoman for the Wisconsin Department of Health Services.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
We could put Ma in the fruit cellar. It worked for Norman.
You have made a very valid point and I agree with you.
I know Washington state has a law that requires you to buy a coffin even if you are getting cremated. Well, guess how much the cheapest coffin is at the funeral home? My then husband’s step-grandmother had problems affording his grandfather’s cremation and my then mother-in-law paid for her ex-father-in-law’s cremation as a favor to the family. I think the cheapest you can get a cremation due to that law is around $3,000.
***Lots of families that cannot afford to bury their dead cannot afford health insurance either. The Democrats would fine them. ***
Lets all get together and demand the GOVERNMENT control the burial of our dead! Why should we be held hostage by the funeral parlors that rob people blind!
the Gov’t could provide a simple coffin, plot, urn, or Soylent Green processing freeing us from the drudgery of burying our dead! LET THE GOVERNMENT DO IT!
SARC/OFF
This represents more the obscene rates charged to bury your loved ones. The state can cremate for $750, while the same procedure costs over $5,000 to the rest of us.
I told my wife years ago to let the state get rid of my body. I won’t be needing it after I am dead and she can save money, but it pissed her off. I was serious but she thought I was joking.
So none of these people have estates?
I do know several people whose children don’t have contact with them. In one case, the woman’s daughter took and took and took until she was finally told “no more”. So the daughter stopped speaking to her mother. I could see her not picking up her mother’s body just for spite.
A few weeks ago I helped a friend who is a landlord empty out the house of a couple that bolted owing three months rent. The entire story could be told by the boxes they left behind.
They had boxes for:
A Playstation 3
A 52” Television
Two Apple Notebooks
Several generations of iPods
Assorted car audio hardware
Assorted camera equipment
They left behind a color laser printer and fridge sized wine cooler!
No wonder they couldn’t come up with rent, but naturally their story was one of them had lost their job and they had to buy a second car to get to their new job in the middle of nowhere and yada yada yada.
Perhaps true, perhaps not - but the recent purchases suggest they might have come up with the funds otherwise.
When I lived in Miami in the mid-80’s they needed to borrow a refrigerated trailer from a restaurant to warehouse the unclaimed bodies of unknown latin males. The law required them to hold the bodies for 30 days, but the columbians and cubans were blowing each other away in such large numbers they ran out of space regularly.
Great post. What you say gets right to the heart of one of Ameruca;s greatest ailments. Wanting and expecting things that you cannot afford.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.