Online only: Who pays for ‘final options’ if you can’t?

In our special report “Final Options,” we outlined the three major ways to achieve your “final disposition.”
They include burial, which was done nearly 100 percent of the time in western society for centuries; cremation, which has now become the choice of 80 percent of people in Deschutes County, and donation of the body, or parts of the body to medical science.

In researching this topic ,we discovered the costs of “going” vary widely.

A simple cremation in Deschutes County costs $795. That includes everything neede including the required paperwork.

Burial can cost as much as $4,800, and with the added costs of opening and closing a grave, a casket, a headstone and funeral service, you could be spending thousands.

So then, this question arose: What happens if you’re indigent? Who pays? We found out. Deschutes Memorial Gardens Funeral Director Jerome Daniel sheds some light in this accompanying video.