By Fran Spielman
The Chicago Sun-Times
CHICAGO — Chicago is re-examining a rule that prohibits private ambulance services from transporting dead bodies in hopes that competition for the grisly service could reduce the nation’s highest transport fees, a top mayoral aide said Thursday.
Earlier this year, Ohio-based GSSP Enterprises Inc. agreed to slash its prices by 25 percent -- from $915 a body to $690 -- under pressure from the City Council’s most powerful alderman.
Dallas pays $94 a body. San Antonio pays $125 per cadaver. The Cook County sheriff’s police pays $250 per body.
Finance Committee Chairman Edward M. Burke (14th) also introduced an ordinance, now pending in committee, that would allow private ambulance services to compete for the work.
But after testifying Thursday at City Council budget hearings, Business Affairs and Licensing Commissioner Norma Reyes disclosed that she has the power to create competition without Council approval.
She could lift a city regulation she is now re-examining that prohibits private ambulance services from transporting dead bodies to the morgue.
“Competition is good. And that has nothing to do with ambulances [alone]. That has to do with business in general,” she said.
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