5/24/06 – HB 06-1348 a bill that would have brought funeral director licensing to the only state that doesn’t regulate mortuaries , failed. The bill needed serious work, though. As the Funeral Consumer Society of Colorado said in its newsletter, “HB06-1348 has too many onerous requirements that would make it too difficult for a new operator to open a business in Colorado. We agree the current situation is too easy, but we want to have a thriving competition among competent and ethical providers in Colorado . . .the bill as written would make Colorado like many other states where competition is thwarted and prices are much higher than need be.”
What did the bill require? Among other things, anyone wanting to get an embalmer’s license would have had to work 4,000 hours embalming bodies. That works out to 500 8-hour workdays . Even we think that’s a bit much. In addition, the bill didn’t give enough weight to consumer complaints, and gave too much deference to the state’s funeral trade organization, a sure-fire way to put the fox among the hens.
