Burying the poor becoming more difficult as local budgets shrink

[a kennedy]

Yikes.....didn't know this was such a problem....

Times are tough, even for the dead.
A sour economy and shrinking government resources have forced Wisconsin funeral homes and medical examiners to bury more paupers for free — or keep the corpses in storage longer.
"Everybody in the community plays a part in burying them," said longtime Madison funeral director Pete Gunderson. "It's just that with the state and the county pulling its limited amount of funding, it's caused more and more pressure on those that have had big hearts before."
The state pays up to $2,500 apiece to bury indigent people who qualify for Medicaid. In 2010, Dane County received $246,000 to bury 125 people.
But some of the dead poor have fallen through the cracks since 2009, when the state stopped sending the money, called general assistance, that counties used to bury those not eligible for Medicaid. In 2008, for example, general assistance paid Dane County slightly more than $32,000 for 41 bodies.
One man's body has been cooling in the Dane County morgue since 2005 — he was identified, but no family was found.
Finally, in November, an investigator found relatives, but they refused to pay for burial, acting Dane County Medical Examiner Barry Irmen said. Now Irmen's asked that Medicaid step in.

http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/article_0991ccee-2368-11e0-b089-001cc4c002e0.html

[KittyWampus]

1. why not cremate them?

[Lucky 13]

2. That still costs money. Would help... but there is still a cost...

[Obamanaut]

6. Not nearly as much as even a cheap burial. I've already paid for mine, for

about $1,500.

This is the price without a service provided by the funeral home, and no viewing of my remains.

My daughters will arrange a simple service at the beach, and the ashes will be buried at sea from a USN ship.

[Kennah]

3. Soylent Green is people!

[Zoeisright]

4. Oh good god, this country really is becoming a third world nation.

We are definitely in a steep decline.

[azurnoir]

5. In MN Tim Pawlenty wanted to cremate all 'indigent' people and

sell their ashes to fertilizer companies!

I do not know if he ever got his way on that

[RaleighNCDUer]

7. This is silly. How much can it possibly cost to pay a guy with a backhoe

to dig a hole, and pay another guy to knock together a pine box? Why would it have to cost anything more than 200 buck? I could build a coffin with $80 of wood from Home Depot.

Funerals are not for the dead - they're for the living. If the unclaimed dead are buried on the cheap, obviously nobody is going to complain.