As our leaders continue to spend billions in three unpopular wars, our cities and states continue to move closer and closer to a state of nature. This week, the state of Illinois will stop paying to bury the dead. Funeral directors have been sent a letter that they will have to find something to do with indigent dead people.
The letter to more than 600 funeral directors says that the state will no longer foot the $13 million bill to pay for an estimated 12,000 funerals for individuals who relied on public aid. One funeral owner is quoted as saying “Now the only viable option — I don’t mean to make light of it — is to leave the body at the medical examiner office.”
Hundreds of billions have been expended abroad as our citizens can no longer be buried for lack of funds. This would be a poor joke if it were at all funny.
I cannot wait to see how the Ayn Randians will spin this one. That dead body should have taken responsibility for its own burial….
Once the various city and county morgues are full, what will they do with them….
AY: Process them into Soylent Green, of course.
This is how the zombie apocalypse begins….
Illinois just topped the state department’s trick of threatening to close the Washington Monument every time budget cuts are proposed.
WTH is going on?
couldn’t they be rendered for soap, gelatin and other valuable commodities? The state is missing a real opportunity for new revenue streams.
That would make the ‘baggers happy
Being an Illinois resident for my entire life, I am concerned if I haves saved enough for burial expenses!
Farnky, I’m sure Alec can offer advice — probably involving America’s new labor workfiorce, to wit (or witless):
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/8/5/new_expos_tracks_alec_private_prison
[Pay attention class: that is how a link to a file should read!]
Raff,
Thus the need for government interference….There are benefits and draw backs to both….
Consumers received some protection from unscrupulous funeral providers with the creation of the Funeral Rule in 1984. This rule, administered by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), requires funeral providers to give consumers accurate, itemized price information and other specific disclosures about funeral goods and services. Unfortunately, the Funeral Rule does not apply to many of the features of pre-need contracts, which are governed solely by state law. Every state except Alabama has laws covering pre-need contracts, but protections vary widely from state to state. Some state laws require the funeral home or cemetery to place a percentage of the prepayment in a state-regulated trust or to purchase a life insurance policy with the death benefits assigned to the funeral home or cemetery. Other states, however, offer buyers of pre-need plans little or no effective protection.
http://www.elderlawanswers.com/Resources/Article.asp?ID=1098
“This is Medicaid planning 101,” he said. “Everyone ought to be doing this.”
You don’t need a lawyer; prepaid burial plans can be arranged directly through a funeral parlor. The funeral, burial and related fees are paid up front. The cost is more than if a person died today, but the plan is paid in full, even if the person doesn’t die for decades. Had Anthony Ventarola Jr. learned of prepaid funeral plans sooner, he could have saved more of his dad’s money.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/money/2007/09/10/2007-09-10_arranging_for_prepaid_plan_helps_ease_fu-1.html#ixzz1UpRHovh7
Talk about picking on a section of the electorate that won’t be voting. Disgusting.
culheath,
Not true, not true….many a folks have voted in Chicago and Texas despite being in the ground…
point taken lol
By the way, I love that Jacques-Louis David painting of Marat reminds me of the Marat/Sade play I saw in my teens.
Bodies can be donated to medical schools for research and teaching.
Judy Collins version Marat/Sade…
We’ve got nothing always had nothing
Nothing but holes and millions of them
Living holes
Dying in holes
Holes in our bellies
Holes in our clothes
Marat were poor
And the poor stay poor
Marat don’t make us wait any more
We want our rights
And we don’t care how
We want a revolution
Now!
@ Bette Noir – Remember, Tuesday is Soylent Green day.
CEJ,
Thanks,,,great album ah, 1966-67. Same time I saw the play.
Tuesday? Damn. Now I’ll have to wait until next week.
I suppose one can look at this several ways. One way is that we shouldn’t spend money on 3 wars and instead a) spend the money for burial of the destitute or, b) don’t collect or spend the money at all.
Or, do the wars and don’t spend so much federal taxes collected from only 50% of the households on big social programs that are unaffordable.
BTW, is it the Illinois State Tax dollars that are being cut out of this? If so do Illinois State Tax dollars go to the feds for the wars? No? Oh, that’s for the Federal tax revenue only? Then the argument is false!
Why do Illinois taxpayers have to shell out money for burial expenses anyway? Can’t we have a bulk incinerator powered by solar collectors or windmills or bio-fuel from Illinois corn? Yeah that’s it. Burn them with Illinois corn. Or better yet … cremate them with ethanol fueled flames from subsidized Illinois corn. Booyah!
“Why do Illinois taxpayers have to shell out money for burial expenses anyway? Can’t we have a bulk incinerator powered by solar collectors or windmills or bio-fuel from Illinois corn? Yeah that’s it. Burn them with Illinois corn. Or better yet … cremate them with ethanol fueled flames from subsidized Illinois corn. Booyah!”
Geeba Geeba,
Was that a “Swiftian” comment?
Couple of points.
I had a friend who died a number of years ago. He could care less what happened to his body once he was finished with it. He had a dry sense of humor and often said, “After a week or so, I expect the folks offended by the smell will come up with a solution for disposing of my second hand carcass.”
Second, there were suggestions for donating the bodies to medical schools. The problem is that medical schools sometimes already have more cadavers than they can use. What would happen if they suddenly got a flood of hundreds more?
load them onto b-52 stratofortresses and drop them on to Afghanistan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ST01bZJPuE0
or the could do this and make a few extra bucks
wordpress is messin with me
yes mr. spindell. Swiftian indeed. Never been much of a type to extemporaneously belt out “June is Bustin’ Out All Over”. I look at the Statue of Liberty in two different ways. I get misty when crusing by it on a tour boat, imagining myself as an ancestor seeing it upon arrival to the promised land. I also see it as Colonel Taylor did in “Planet of the Apes.” I’m hoping we don’t get to that with all the monkey business in DC.
Taxpayers cover the cost of burying the destitute because (a) society would not tolerate dead bodies being left on the curb next to the recycle bin and (b) we believe that human dignity should be respected even in death. But actual burial is merely a tradition. But cremation would obviously be more cost effective.
Mike,
You left out C) Leaving dead rotting bodies everywhere is a great way to cause the death of huge chunks of your population.
it suppose to be sam kinnison
DAMN YOU WKRP
(charlton heston shakes fist at flem building)
About $1083 per cadaver. Body prep and cremation could be done for a lot less.
Cremation not only makes economic sense, it makes sense from a public health perspective.
Burn ‘em, Danno.
I would say four wars: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and Libya. But they are all actually part of the one war that will peak before very long.