need help on Mortuary statistics

I'd like to keep track of deaths in the US since the new medicare/caid rules, dying economy, global warming, etc.

putting Mortuary statistics in the search machines brings up oodles of stats. what I'm asking is if someone in the mortuary business could point me to a national stat. source, if such a thing exists.

or a place I could pose this question of morticians: are you having more dead then you used to?

now that I've put this request out into the world, the bushmilhousegang will put a gag order on mortuary stats. :)

searching is not one of my better skills. I'm skilled at making sense of a lot of stats but not in searching out the stats.

(noticed that the first link on the list was military mortuary stats)

discussion on this matter would be good to.

snip>
The U.S. population may be aging, but the number of Americans who died in 2004 represents the biggest one-year decline since World War II, according to preliminary government data released Wednesday.

Nearly 50,000 fewer Americans died in 2004 than in 2003, according to data based on about 90% of U.S. death certificates. The preliminary number of U.S. deaths in 2004 was 2,398,343, compared with 2,448,288 in 2003.

The last decline this large occurred in 1944, when there were about 48,000 fewer deaths than in 1943, says Arialdi Minlead author of the report.

"We were surprised. We were scratching our heads," says Minino, a statistician at the National Center for Health Statistics. "Something of this magnitude is really out of the ordinary." U.S. deaths usually rise each year, he says, adding that the last decline occurred in 1997, when 445 fewer Americans died than in 1996.
snip>
Newest thing I could find, dated 4/19/2006 9:54 PM ET

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2006-04-19-death_x.htm

National Center for Health Statistics' Web site
a rich source of information about America’s health. As the Nation’s principal health statistics agency, we compile statistical information to guide actions and policies to improve the health of our people. We are a unique public resource for health information–-a critical element of public health and health policy.

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/

This report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) provides selected key findings from 2004 preliminary mortality data for the United States. The findings come from a substantial portion of the records of deaths that occurred in calendar year 2004 and were received and processed by NCHS as of September 12, 2005. Mortality records are based on information reported on death certificates as completed by funeral directors, attending physicians, medical examiners, and coroners.

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/pubs/pubd/hestats/prelimdeaths04/preliminarydeaths04.htm

mortician groups, or mortician magazines

don't know if I would trust bushmilhousegang gov. stats on anything.

fingers into the stats.

why would less people die in '04? doesn't make sense.