Opening Insights
Pocket Wisdom Insights (PWI) invites you to explore the following Co-Lab Blog.
This blog features parts of influential and insightful article written outside of the PWI Co-Lab
by Christopher Ingraham, on March 7, 2017, published by WashingtonPost.com
We have republished this content in respect of the author’s vision, message and research.
Informational Insights
The state’s indigent burial fund has run out of money four months before the end of the fiscal year.
Deaths in West Virginia have overwhelmed a state program providing burial assistance for needy families for at least the fifth year in a row, causing the program to be nearly out of money four months before the end of the fiscal year, according to the state’s Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR). Funeral directors in West Virginia say the state’s drug overdose epidemic, the worst in the nation, is partly to blame.
West Virginia’s indigent burial program, which budgets about $2 million a year for funeral financial assistance, had already been under pressure from the aging of the baby-boom generation. The program offers an average of $1,250 to help cover funeral expenses for families who can’t otherwise afford them.
In the current fiscal year ending June 30, “1,508 burials have been submitted for payment through the Indigent Burial Program,” according to Allison Adler, a spokesman for state DHHR Secretary Bill Crouch. “There are funds remaining for 63 additional burials.”
The program has been around for decades, according to Adler, but only began running out of funds starting in 2013. In 2014, the program ran out of money in June. By 2015, the program’s budget was depleted by March, similar to where it stands this year.
Adler didn’t respond to a question on the role drug overdoses have played in the program running out of money. But funeral directors such as Robert C. Kimes of the West Virginia Funeral Directors Association blame skyrocketing overdose deaths for the current troubles. In 2015, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, West Virginia’s drug overdose death rate stood at 41.5 cases per 100,000 residents, the highest rate in the country and nearly three times the national average. In 1999, the state’s overdose fatality rate was below average.
Possibilities for Consideration
Take a moment and examine…
- As you reviewed the material above, what stood out to you?
- What is the potential impact, economically and/or socially?
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- You may want to consider whether you:
- want to be aware of,
- should become supportive of,
- would want to be active in this topic?
Add Your Insight
I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply.
Being willing is not enough; we must do.
LEONARDO DA VINCI