Electricity discounts

General Discussion on any topic relating to CPAP and/or Sleep Apnea.
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roster
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Re: Electricity discounts

Post by roster » Tue Aug 19, 2008 2:38 pm

DreamStalker wrote:

Oh ... so you "mean poor people's governments have poor ways" ... right?
Well yes, you could consider that Grannie's words of wisdom working at a macro level.

But her words are true at the micro level also. Goofproof notes a good example. Like Goofproof, Grannie looked at the poor people in her community and saw they were involved in various bad activities such as heavy drinking, drug use, wife and child beating, family desertion, illegitimate children, failure to consistently show up for work, squandering resources on frivolous items, failure to save for a rainy day, etc.


DreamStalker wrote:

........but not the WalMarts or the people who shop there?
I don't know about San Antonio, but in North Carolina every WalMart fills up every day with a big socio-economic cross section of shoppers. So who are you blaming for whatever it is bad that WalMart supposedly does?
DreamStalker wrote:

...........

Blaming poor people for being poor is ... well, a poor way of stereotyping them.
Get a high school education, shower every morning, dress and groom presentably, show up at work every day a few minutes early, treat your associates with respect, treat the company's customers like they are important, don't have babies until you can afford them, don't use illegal drugs ..... you get the idea. In the good old USA it's pretty simple for 95% of the poor to give up their poor ways and get out of the poor class.

Now I know calamity sometimes befalls people with good ways and puts them in financial binds. But this is a minority and there is plenty of help for most who seek it.

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hobbs
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Re: Electricity discounts

Post by hobbs » Tue Aug 19, 2008 2:45 pm

Me thinks we may need a politics/religion forum added to keeps threads on topic.

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Re: Electricity discounts

Post by roster » Tue Aug 19, 2008 2:53 pm

hobbs wrote:Me thinks we may need a politics/religion forum added to keeps threads on topic.
Hobbs, if you look at CorgiGirl's starting post and the next two followups she did, you will see that she started a political/economic discussion. This thread was on topic until you just chimed in.

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Re: Electricity discounts

Post by roster » Tue Aug 19, 2008 3:05 pm

Sharing: A lesson on human nature
I was talking to a friend of mine's little girl the other day. I asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up and she replied, "I want to be President!" Both of her parents are liberals and were standing there. So then I asked her, "If you were President what would be the first thing you would do?"

She replied, "I'd give houses to all the homeless people."

"Wow - what a worthy goal." I told her, "You don't have to wait until you're President to do that. You can come over to my house and mow, pull weeds, and sweep my yard, and I'll pay you $50. Then I'll take you over to the grocery store where this homeless guy hangs out, and you can give him the $50 to use toward a new house."

Since she is only 6, she thought that over for a few seconds. While her Mom glared at me, she looked me straight in the eye and asked, "Why doesn't the homeless guy come over and do the work, and you can just pay him the $50?"

And I said, "Welcome to the conservative sector."

Her folks still aren't talking to me.

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Re: Electricity discounts

Post by Bearded_One » Tue Aug 19, 2008 4:34 pm

mymontreal; "Intermittent Positive Pressure Breathing (IPPB) machines" are either new devices or are still in testing; they are used for COPD and other lung problems.

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Re: Electricity discounts

Post by Bearded_One » Tue Aug 19, 2008 4:49 pm

I am a bleeding heart liberal, and I think that trying to get an electrical power discount for CPAP is flat out unreasonable. Many of the electrical power discount programs for life saving devices started when people started using iron lungs at home -- and the electricity to run one was quite expensive.

I can definitely understand trying to get on a restoration priority list and perhaps some sort of program to try delay the shut off the power for non-payment. The second part is quite difficult, and it may be rolled into existing programs.

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Re: Electricity discounts

Post by sleepycarol » Tue Aug 19, 2008 6:36 pm

I for one did not want nor need a discount. My concern was power outages. Our infrastructure, like many others around the country, is outdated and constantly needs work. Unfortunately our power company has went through many transitions and is in the process of yet another transition (meaning new owners). It is not unusual in the winter to lose power for a day or two -- up to a week or so. A few years ago when ours had been out for 8 days and no end in sight of getting power restored I was told to hire a private electrician for part of the work -- at the time I was unable to afford such a luxury. Due to my husbands work he is often away from home from a few days to a couple of months at a time so I worry about what to do in case of a power outage -- dealing with batteries how to keep them charged, etc..

It would be nice to have some kind of protection in case of a power outage and get power as early as possible (usually the priority list around here means the wealthy subdivisions first and then it goes down the list and I happen to live in the old part of town that was established in the beginning and receives few priorities. I know there will be some say move -- I grew up a block from where I settled into my adult life so that means I have lived here for 54 years. Our home is paid for free and clear -- we have redone most of it to our liking -- so no I am not going to move.
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I am not a doctor or other health care professional. Comments reflect my own personal experiences and opinions.

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Re: Electricity discounts

Post by Goofproof » Tue Aug 19, 2008 8:41 pm

rooster wrote:
Sharing: A lesson on human nature
I was talking to a friend of mine's little girl the other day. I asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up and she replied, "I want to be President!" Both of her parents are liberals and were standing there. So then I asked her, "If you were President what would be the first thing you would do?"

She replied, "I'd give houses to all the homeless people."

"Wow - what a worthy goal." I told her, "You don't have to wait until you're President to do that. You can come over to my house and mow, pull weeds, and sweep my yard, and I'll pay you $50. Then I'll take you over to the grocery store where this homeless guy hangs out, and you can give him the $50 to use toward a new house."

Since she is only 6, she thought that over for a few seconds. While her Mom glared at me, she looked me straight in the eye and asked, "Why doesn't the homeless guy come over and do the work, and you can just pay him the $50?"

And I said, "Welcome to the conservative sector."

Her folks still aren't talking to me.
As Paul Harvey would say the rest of the story, the homeless person would go into the store and buy $49 dollars of wine and a lottery ticket, go back to his box, and poison himself with the wine. Someone would call the police, they would call the paramedics who would rush him to the hospital. The cost to the taxpayer would be in the thousands of dollars. Then he would be dumped back into the streets to repeat the cycle.

Who profited from the giving to the man $50? Answer everyone involved ,except for the homeless person, all he got was the stomach pump. Jim
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Re: Electricity discounts

Post by DreamStalker » Tue Aug 19, 2008 9:53 pm

rooster wrote:
DreamStalker wrote:

Oh ... so you "mean poor people's governments have poor ways" ... right?
Well yes, you could consider that Grannie's words of wisdom working at a macro level.

But her words are true at the micro level also. Goofproof notes a good example. Like Goofproof, Grannie looked at the poor people in her community and saw they were involved in various bad activities such as heavy drinking, drug use, wife and child beating, family desertion, illegitimate children, failure to consistently show up for work, squandering resources on frivolous items, failure to save for a rainy day, etc.
Well let's see then, on the macro level there is not, has never been, and never will be a government that is not corrupt ... so that may explain why there are poor, always have, and always will be poor people in every country including the good old USA
rooster wrote:
DreamStalker wrote:

........but not the WalMarts or the people who shop there?
I don't know about San Antonio, but in North Carolina every WalMart fills up every day with a big socio-economic cross section of shoppers. So who are you blaming for whatever it is bad that WalMart supposedly does?
By WalMarts I mean a placeholder for international corporations that outsource labor to third world economies and keep the corrupt governments corrupt and poor people poor ... and by people who shop there I mean those who ignorantly feed the corporate machines and keep them growing.



rooster wrote:
DreamStalker wrote:

...........

Blaming poor people for being poor is ... well, a poor way of stereotyping them.
Get a high school education, shower every morning, dress and groom presentably, show up at work every day a few minutes early, treat your associates with respect, treat the company's customers like they are important, don't have babies until you can afford them, don't use illegal drugs ..... you get the idea. In the good old USA it's pretty simple for 95% of the poor to give up their poor ways and get out of the poor class.

Now I know calamity sometimes befalls people with good ways and puts them in financial binds. But this is a minority and there is plenty of help for most who seek it.
So those unfortunate who have an illness without any way to pay for health care are in the minority? ... Well, I guess you're right, 45 million US citizens are a statistical minority

http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www ... 02484.html

But wait then there are those like my Mom who like your Grandma managed to get a 6th grade education before she had to quit school to work in the agriculture fields of south Texas to help feed her family because her father died when she was about 2 years old (btw – she was born in Texas as were my grandparents and great grandparents ... so don't go Lou Dobbs on me now). She bathed each night with water from the canal that she heated in a metal tub, and groomed herself as best she could afford, and went to work before the sun came up, never did drugs, and didn't have me or my sisters until after she was 23, got married to my dad, and could afford us. I don't know what kind of micro economics you learned but just because people are poor does NOT mean they are dirty, ungroomed, lazy, drug addict, baby factories. My dad was a bit more fortunate, though not rich, or even middle class as he too worked the fields as a teen but managed to finish high school then joined the air force to advance his education -- since there was no way he could ever afford college. As a young adult, I was lucky enough to be able work my way through college instead of working to help support my family as my parents did theirs ... and I did take a freshman economic course but I must have been asleep when they defined poor people.

Your micro economics is all screwed up ... you have poor people mixed up with people that have low esteem and/or other psychological problems. Just watch the news and you will note that rich people can have low self esteem too and heavy drinking, drug use, wife and child beating, family desertion, illegitimate children, squandering resources on frivolous items, ... and some of them don't even work so it's hard for them to show up late I guess.
President-pretender, J. Biden, said "the DNC has built the largest voter fraud organization in US history". Too bad they didn’t build the smartest voter fraud organization and got caught.

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Re: Electricity discounts

Post by Snoredog » Tue Aug 19, 2008 11:27 pm

You could always put up SOLAR, you would get a tax credit for most of the cost and eventually it will pay you.
someday science will catch up to what I'm saying...

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Re: Electricity discounts

Post by roster » Wed Aug 20, 2008 5:18 am

DreamStalker wrote: ..........
...........She bathed each night with water from the canal that she heated in a metal tub, .............
I bathed in a galvanized metal tub until I was twelve years old. We were fortunate to have a well with an electric pump and one faucet in the house but no water heater. For bathing we would heat water in a cast iron kettle on the oil heater standing in the den. We had a quaint wooden toilet 50 yards from the house at the edge of the woods. We did not know it at the time, but today I would say it was rather chilling to awake at 5:30 a.m. and trek in 15 degree F temperatures to the toilet.

It could have been different. We could have had some government social worker visit us and tell us how poor we were (we thought other people were poor, not us). They could have signed us up for the National Hot Water and Porcelain Bathtub Program and the National Indoor Toilet Program and the National Income Subsidy Program. We could have clearly learned that we were living in poverty and our poverty was caused by the wealthy people who built factories and other businesses. Too bad we did not understand that we were victims of a cruel system some greedy people charaterize as freedom.

If I had known the "truth" I would not have gone to work in a cotton mill at 16 and saved my own money for college. I could have avoided learning a "cruel" work ethic and how to budget costs.

DS, with the knowledge that you and I were victims and there was a national safety net to keep us afloat, I wonder how our education and careers would have progressed? I suspect not too damn well!

Have a good day.

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Re: Electricity discounts

Post by DreamStalker » Wed Aug 20, 2008 7:09 am

rooster wrote: .....

... It could have been different. We could have had some government social worker visit us and tell us how poor we were (we thought other people were poor, not us). They could have signed us up for the National Hot Water and Porcelain Bathtub Program and the National Indoor Toilet Program and the National Income Subsidy Program. We could have clearly learned that we were living in poverty and our poverty was caused by the wealthy people who built factories and other businesses. Too bad we did not understand that we were victims of a cruel system some greedy people charaterize as freedom.

If I had known the "truth" I would not have gone to work in a cotton mill at 16 and saved my own money for college. I could have avoided learning a "cruel" work ethic and how to budget costs.

DS, with the knowledge that you and I were victims and there was a national safety net to keep us afloat, I wonder how our education and careers would have progressed? I suspect not too damn well!

Have a good day.
You continue to miss the point, not all poor people are poor because they want to be, as your micro economics education has led you to believe. It can sometimes take generations for hard working poor people to to get out of poverty ... and the national safety net has large holes in it -- as I have friends and relatives who are still working hard to make it out of their impoverished standard of living without affordable healthcare or education ... and they are not the stupid, dirty, lazy, drug users you have characterized them to be. In fact I have a handful of cousins serving in Iraq/Afghanistan risking their lives ... not because they believe in the reasons for war but because they have no better/quicker way to afford healthcare and education for themselves or their families.

I will have a great day and wish you one as well
President-pretender, J. Biden, said "the DNC has built the largest voter fraud organization in US history". Too bad they didn’t build the smartest voter fraud organization and got caught.

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Re: Electricity discounts

Post by WearyOne » Wed Aug 20, 2008 7:35 am

rooster wrote:
Sharing: A lesson on human nature
I was talking to a friend of mine's little girl the other day. I asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up and she replied, "I want to be President!" Both of her parents are liberals and were standing there. So then I asked her, "If you were President what would be the first thing you would do?"

She replied, "I'd give houses to all the homeless people."

"Wow - what a worthy goal." I told her, "You don't have to wait until you're President to do that. You can come over to my house and mow, pull weeds, and sweep my yard, and I'll pay you $50. Then I'll take you over to the grocery store where this homeless guy hangs out, and you can give him the $50 to use toward a new house."

Since she is only 6, she thought that over for a few seconds. While her Mom glared at me, she looked me straight in the eye and asked, "Why doesn't the homeless guy come over and do the work, and you can just pay him the $50?"

And I said, "Welcome to the conservative sector."

Her folks still aren't talking to me.
I like this story. It kind of reminds me of something a local talk show host did. We have men who stand at stoplights holding signs saying, "Need money for food," or something like that. The radio guy can't stand the thought of giving money because he figures they'll just go to the local liquor store with it, so he did an experiment (very small one). He bought a few meals from McDonald's and went back to two of these guys to give them the food. They didn't want the food; they wanted the money.

There are plenty of people who have fallen on bad times through no fault of their own. The community/church needs to help these folks, though, not the government. Before welfare and all that, that's the way it was done.
rooster wrote: <snip> hey could have signed us up for the National Hot Water and Porcelain Bathtub Program and the National Indoor Toilet Program and the National Income Subsidy Program.
(I wouldn't be surprised if these programs really existed ). Too many government handouts, too little community help. Help people find the job, giving them the necessities while they're doing what they can to get back on their feet. See an employed single mom whose husband ran out on her and she's struggling to keep food on the table for her family, or the father next door who is working a job without health insurance gets sick, can't work for a while, can't pay his medical bills, and struggling to keep his family afloat? We need to help them as their neighbors, community, and church.

Now that I'm off my soapbox---I could get a small discount on my electric bill for cpap, but choose not to. And financially, although we're struggling, we're not in need. The struggling is through some holes that were dug, that we're now climbing out of.

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Re: Electricity discounts

Post by roster » Wed Aug 20, 2008 6:19 pm

DreamStalker wrote: ..........
.......... In fact I have a handful of cousins serving in Iraq/Afghanistan risking their lives ... not because they believe in the reasons for war but because they have no better/quicker way to afford healthcare and education for themselves or their families. ..............
My sincerest thanks to your cousins. Based on the history of our veterans, there is a very high probability that they will have fruitful lives after leaving the service. Good for them to pursue "better/quicker ways" instead of "poor ways".
DreamStalker wrote: ..........
............. not because they believe in the reasons for war . ..............
DS, I trust you as much as I trust anyone on this forum. But I am a "trust-and-verify" guy and I would like to verify this one statement with your cousins when they return home. Maybe red, white and blue runs through their circulatory system now?


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Re: Electricity discounts

Post by mkirkwag » Thu Aug 21, 2008 8:51 am

Corgigirl - when I was the one paying the power bill from puget sound energy and before I went paperless, the information was on an enclosure in the bill. I noticed it because I had parents in another state who needed that service. They only mention priority to life-saving devices and discounts to below poverty-level customers, however. But at least you can be sure they have some kind of program in place if you want to give them a call.