Elderly man freezes to death in home

[Munchkin03]

Originally Posted by UGAalum94

ETA: sure, the number of people who will meet the criteria you outlined is probably pretty limited, but it seems that there's a better way of dealing with the whole issue rather than just saying certain folks are exempt from getting the utilities cut off.

It's not that limited, if you think about it. The elderly, ill, people with kids, and those who need power to treat chronic illnesses (that could be as basic as asthma or diabetes, if a case is severe enough) are the most vulnerable. That pretty much eliminates everyone except for able-bodied young and middle-aged people without children in the home. Those people should be able to pay their own power bill.

It seems to work well here in NYC, since people don't freeze to death all winter long.

As far as "the pioneer days" and people not having electricity then, we also live in areas of the world that weren't exactly habitable before the advent of electricity and the automobile. Also, one of the interesting advances of science is medications sometimes have to be refrigerated. We can't pretend that we can do without the things people did 150 years ago because times have changed.

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by Munchkin03

It's not that limited, if you think about it. The elderly, ill, people with kids, and those who need power to treat chronic illnesses (that could be as basic as asthma or diabetes, if a case is severe enough) are the most vulnerable. That pretty much eliminates everyone except for able-bodied young and middle-aged people without children in the home. Those people should be able to pay their own power bill.

It seems to work well here in NYC, since people don't freeze to death all winter long.

As far as "the pioneer days" and people not having electricity then, we also live in areas of the world that weren't exactly habitable before the advent of electricity and the automobile. Also, one of the interesting advances of science is medications sometimes have to be refrigerated. We can't pretend that we can do without the things people did 150 years ago because times have changed.

People lived in some pretty cold places before electricity was taken for granted, but I'm not suggesting we should go back. I'm pretty grateful for air conditioning in the summer, especially. I just think it's odd how relatively quickly we've come to accept an entitlement to electric power.

I think utilities are something that ought to be a high priority for people to pay for themselves. The number of people who actually can't pay is probably pretty low, but if we make too long a list of people who get power whether they pay for it our not, I think we're going to see a lot fewer people on the list making paying for utilities a priority.

But I'm certainly not saying that we cut power off and let people freeze to death. I just think there may be other effective ways to handle the issue.

I suspect that heat in general is less of an issue in NYC because of shared building heat among apartments. If you are on a floor fairly high up in a building, you might not even need much of your own. So, if power bills are pretty cheap, there probably are not a lot of people who are trying to justify to themselves not paying for it.

You just want to be careful what you indirectly invite with public policy.