An interesting bill that may have ramifications for beyond West Virginia was recently referred to the West Virginia House Finance Committee.  The bill, which should come up for debate and possible vote this session stems from the fact that the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources ran out of indigent burial funding last year with four months still left in the year.  You can read about the bill here.

House Bill 4024 has the support of Fred Kitchen, President of the West Virginia Funeral Directors Association.  Kitchen believes that there is no interest on the part of the legislature to appropriate more money into the indigent burial fund so he is asking for legislation that would actually trim the amount paid funeral homes from the present amount of $1,250 per body to $1,000 per body.

A couple other interesting items in the bill would be that the bill would mandate cremation as a method of disposition unless there is a religious exception for a family, only West Virginia funeral homes could participate in the program, and funeral homes could elect to not serve indigent families.

Funeral Director Daily take:  There are really tough issues in society and this bill is dealing with some of them.  Our nation has came a long way from the time when churches or neighbors dealt with those that needed a safety net in society.  However, without that charity, this service becomes a government cost – and governments then regulate such.

No funeral home is making a tremendous amount of money at $1,000 per case — even if it is handled with direct cremation.  It seems that society has more on the fringe now, than when I first entered funeral service, and they need help too.  The rub, and difficulty, comes in the difference that society, the government, is willing to pay those providing the services as compared to what indigent family members feel entitled to as services.  It is not only funeral service that is dealing with these types of  issues.

Specifically with this bill, and funeral service though, it will be interesting on how the cremation mandate plays out.  Indigents are handled by the county in Minnesota and I can remember about 20 years ago when a county was discussing the mandate of indigent cremations — it really raised a ruckus among the populous.

The other issue I see with this bill is giving funeral homes the option of declining families who call them for indigent funerals.  If funeral homes lose money on such, what happens when all funeral homes decline the services for $1000?  Will there be a state ran funeral service for this business?

I laud West Virginia for trying to tackle this issue.  How it plays out at their legislature may well show a pathway for other states.

[wpforms id=”436″ title=”true” description=”true”]