A 93-year-old Michigan man froze to death in his own home after the city installed a device to limit electrical service to the home in response to unpaid utility bills.
Of course, everyone should pay their utility bills and any fiscal conservative will be suspicious of government mandates that force utility companies to operate at a loss. But cutting off power in the dead of one of the coldest winters in recent memory is outside the boundaries of civilized behavior and is not justified by ideological dogma.
With the economy continuing to weaken and unemployment rising, it is likely that many more consumers will begin to fall behind on their utility bills. But there has to be a better option than allowing people to freeze to death or elying on the assumption that neighbors will step in to help. The city could defer power cutoff until warmer spring months. Or perhaps our politicians could find room in the trillions of bailout dollars they are throwing around to pay an old man’s electrical bill.
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I wonder if it wouldn’t help to make neighbors aware when a problem exists. In my area, the power company has a program where we can donate $1 (or more) each month to a fund to help needy customers, and there are also some small charitable groups that publish articles in local newspapers about families in need. I think we underestimate the degree to which people will pitch in to help others in their community, if only they know where the needs are.
Businesses run off of simple principles: you consume and you pay, period. There’s no reason to change that.
Perhaps children and grandchildren could accept their responsibilities and help their elders meet their obligations. Or better still, have the older people stay with them.
Also, local churches would undoubtedly help out – if they know there is a problem.
The original article says he had no children. I agree local churches and neighbors should have helped, and surely would have if they’d known. I wonder why he didn’t ask for help?
I agree that power companies shouldn’t be forced to keep the power on. Even just requiring them to keep it on through the winter would require them to operate at a loss that likely would not be repaid to them (and summer without power can cause deaths too). But they could at least be required to explain to the resident of the property that their power is being turned off, and check that they are physically and mentally able to find alternative arrangements or seek government assistance (which is available in most areas for these sorts of situations I believe).
On second thought, perhaps they should be required to notify the resident, and contact social services. I know social services are overworked as it is, but it’s hard to think of a more worthwhile task for social services to do than make sure people aren’t freezing to death. Yes, ideally neighbors would do that work (especially neighbors living next to a elderly person), but we don’t live in an ideal world.
Then again, if this is a isolated incident, is it worth creating new mandates (I’m surprised these don’t already exist, actually) and creating more work for government workers to do? I’m not sure, but it’s worth considering anyway.
The old man could have paid for himself
The guy apparently didn’t go outside in the cold much, if he went to check up on it – no issue.
wonder why msnbc left those bits out?