In March last year, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) announced that it would reimburse families for the funeral costs of family members who died from coronavirus infection.
As of mid-February, the average daily death toll from coronavirus is still over 2,000, and the total number of Americans who have died from covid has exceeded 925,000. However, FEMA says it has only received 415,000 funeral reimbursement claims, and 97% of cases if there are required documents, these applications were approved. But relatives of the victims of the pandemic say they face big problems in obtaining the required documents.
Kerry Raisian, professor of public policy at the University of Connecticut, says that although she understands the need to protect the agency from fraud, she feels the document requirements are “too strict.”
A FEMA spokesperson said the agency is working to make the reimbursement process “smoother” and to better communicate the program, which reimburses families for funeral expenses up to $9,000. All applications filed after May 17, 2020 must be accompanied by a copy of a death certificate that lists coronavirus infection as the direct or indirect cause of death, according to the FEMA website. Overall, 213,000 applicants have already received money totaling $1.78 billion. Detailed information about the rules for applying for funeral expenses in Russian can be found on the FEMA website at the link.
Newspaper headline:
Bureaucracy in action