Saturday, March 13, 2010

Wisconsin Debates Increasing Subsidies for Burials

Huh.

The Legislature’s budget committee is considering whether to expand a program that helps pay the funeral and burial expenses of low-income Wisconsin residents.

The Joint Finance Committee on Tuesday is expected to vote on a bill that would allow the program to pay for funerals and burials that cost up to $4,500 instead of the current $3,500.

The maximum funding for each claim would remain at $1,500. But the Department of Health Services says the expanded eligibility might increase claims by 15 percent, or by 500 per year.

The department estimates the bill might increase the program’s costs by $538,000 per year. It estimates the program cost roughly $7.8 million in 2009.

If you run the math, that means that the taxpayers subsidized roughly 5,200 funerals in 2009.  I couldn’t find death statistics for 2009, but there were 46,526 deaths in Wisconsin in 2008.  So the taxpayers are subsidizing roughly 11% of the funerals in Wisconsin.  The state poverty rate is at about 10.7%.  Interesting, no?

(4) Comments
Posted by Owen at 1311 hrs
Politics + Politics - Wisconsin

  1. This is just another area where it’s easier to increase the subsidy than look at the laws that make a funeral so expensive.  Why does a funeral in Wisconsin cost five thousand, low end and under two thousand in many other states ?

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on March 13, 2010 at 1413 hrs


  2. Come on, you have the money, why should the poor be expected to go to their reward on the cheap? Besides, it’s not as if you will get any say in it anyway so just shut up and fork over the money. It’s not like it belongs to you just because you work for it, the Government owns it, or at least they believe they do.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on March 13, 2010 at 1504 hrs


  3. cradle to grave

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on March 13, 2010 at 1706 hrs


  4. Detroit: Too broke to bury their dead
    Money to bury Detroit’s poor has dried up, forcing struggling families to abandon their loved ones in the morgue freezer.
    http://money.cnn.com/2009/10/01/news/economy/_morgue/index.htm

    Fertilizer?

    Free School cadavers?

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on March 13, 2010 at 2322 hrs


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