Funeral Industry Reform
An Israeli friend was asking me this week how Otrib was doing. I told him about the Forbes article and how people continue to tell their friends about the site.
He said, “You know, it’s funny. I don’t think your site would do well in Israel.” “Why?”, I asked. He then told me about differences in costs and burial practices between our two countries. Apparently, burials in Israel are not expensive. This can be attributed to the fact that most people in Israel are given what would be considered a “Green” burial here in the US. Bodies are not embalmed. Nor do they bury people in caskets. The most common practice is to wrap people in shrouds and bury them in caves or shallow graves (there is one exception which I’ll probably discuss in a future blog). Compare that to a typical whole body burial in states which averages in the neighborhood of $6,500.
Moreover, people in Israel essentially have the right to be buried once they die. The state ensures that a citizen of Israel will have thier remains handled appropriately, even when a person is impoverished. I think it is worth pointing out that, unlike here, there is not a significant funeral industry.
A recent Newsweek article points out a small, but growing voice of consumer advocates that is seeking to reassert the rights of individuals to have simple, low cost disposition of bodies. Among the things the article points out: the funeral industry wields significant influence over state legislators, this influence leads to legislation that artificially raises the cost of end of life events and finally, that funeral homes engage in aggressive marketing tactics to drive consumers to make high-cost funeral plans even when they cannot afford to do so.
Certainly, there needs to be regulation and governmental oversight of the proper disposition of dead people. Laws that protect the health and well-being of the living are required. And they should be enforced too. But, creating rules that force consumers to work with for-profit entities in order to bury a loved one seems unjust.
