Many African-Americans unprepared for funeral costs

State will pay for an indigent service but not a burial site.

Iwas sitting with a young reporter recently when she shared an interesting observation. Because she covers crime, she often finds herself scribbling notes while sitting across the kitchen table from a black parent grieving the sudden loss of a young person.

She noticed that in discussions about the tragedy that black people usually say something like, “If I die,” instead of “When I die,” the woman told me.

She was puzzled while I completely understood.

My soon-to-be 87-year-old mother still says, “If something happens to me,” as if death is a possibility rather than a certainty.

Maybe you will be one of the lucky ones who gets to be a centenarian. But if you’ve taken good care of yourself by exercising regularly and not smoking, there’s a fair chance that you’ll get your 78 years before the lights go out.

Whether we like it or not, from the day we come into this world, we are in the process of leaving it.

Yet, too many of us are totally unprepared financially for the certainty of death. Obviously, when you are struggling to get through each day, you’re not thinking about funeral arrangements. But someone’s going to have to pay.

Under these sad circumstances, lowincome families turn to the state for assistance.

In fiscal year 2013, the State of Illinois approved 7,829 claims for funeral and burial expenses. So far this year, 6,429 claims have been approved and 900 are pending, according to a spokesman for the Illinois Department of Human Services.

Those eligible for the aid include individuals receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families or “TANF,” Aid to the Aged, Blind, or Disabled (AABD), and six other assistance programs.

But we are not talking about a grand send-off.

The state will pay a funeral home $1,103 for an indigent service that does not include a burial site, an amount that was last increased in 2007.

Spencer Leak Jr., owner and president of Leak and Sons Funeral Home, is routinely asked to conduct funeral services for people who have died without life insurance.

Now, there are concerns that many lowincome families will be faced with getting no assistance as a result of the Affordable Care Act.

“Now that the Affordable Care Act is in place, those who may have been eligible for the $1,103 now have been disqualified. When they apply for affordable care health insurance, they are not qualified to get burial benefits in the event of their deaths,” Leak said.

As it stands, funeral directors are being asked to provide the indigent a decent funeral service for a fraction of what it costs.

Although the Affordable Care Act helped low-income individuals get health care by expanding Medicaid to include nearly all non-disabled adults under the age of 65, it also deemed funeral and burial not to be a covered service.

“We have on several occasions called the State of Illinois and were told that the deceased did not qualify for the funeral benefits because he or she was enrolled in

Funeral directors are being asked to provide the indigent with a decent funeral service at a fraction of what it costs.

expanded Medicaid. We are getting denials based on Obamacare where we never got denials before,” Leak said.

Tom Green, a spokesman or the state’s Department of Human Services, sent this explanation for the denials by email:

“Several articles of the Public Aid Code address the classes of individuals who are eligible for funeral and burial services. When Medicaid was expanded to cover the [Affordable Care Act] Adults, the Medicaid Article was not changed to include this class,” he said.

But this oversight in a health care system that was designed to provide compassionate care for all, will force low-income Americans into making demeaning choices.

Regardless of a person’s economic status, every human being deserves to leave here with a modicum of dignity.