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Commonwealth Edison of Chicago has no such program listed on their website.

LinkC wrote:Who are these mysterious "others"?

The poor people hooked up to your electric provider, who are going to be sharing the cost of your savings. By that I mean your electric discount, not the true cost of XPAP usage. I am NOT against paying for the real KWH that is really used, just the flat rate discount they will give you, due to their mismanagement of their bussiness. If you use a O2 converter then you need a discount as they use a fair amount of electric. XPAP does not! Jim

An 02 concentrator uses CONSIDERABLY more electricity than a CPAP, up to as much as $30 to $40 a month. Consumers Energy in Michigan does have a discounted program for life supporting equipment. It requires your doctor filling out and submitting a specific form. Our monthly discount for my 02 concentrator?? $4.60 to $5.60 a month. I don't think CE recognizes CPAP as life supporting equipment. I never thought to inquire about CPAP. I was started on 02 six-seven months before CPAP.

sleepycarol wrote:
I am wondering if the apnea monitors were meant to be the ones used for those that used for infants. I know two of my brothers kids had to use them and one of my grandkids. The kids would actually stop breathing and the machines alerted the parents and had alarms to wake the parents up. My brother lost two babies to SIDS. I know there are a lot of theories about SIDS -- but from our families experience the machines were able to prevent the possible deaths of the ones that were given the machines for their protection. In my opinion -- those machines DO save lives and are not in the same category as our cpap machines. I know many will probably argue this point -- but babies are wired differently than adults and I feel that this kids suffer from central sleep apnea where their brains do not always signal for them to breathe.

It might be that instead of the CPAP. I would have to inquire about it. If they don't give it to me, no big deal. I figure I can try and see what happens. My father was on oxygen and therefore was able to have the medical baseline credit. Its not a lot of money anyway, but it helps when someone is on a fixed income.

Here in Australia I get a discount on electricity - just filled out a form, got my GP to sign it, and I get a rebate of 16c per day, and priority assistance if there are power outages. The discount is available for all sorts of medical equipment, and the amount varies for each type of equipment.
I'm not sure of the actual cost of running a CPAP and 16c doesns't sound like much, but it adds up over a year, and anything helps.

Goofproof wrote:

LinkC wrote:Who are these mysterious "others"?

The poor people hooked up to your electric provider, who are going to be sharing the cost of your savings. By that I mean your electric discount, not the true cost of XPAP usage. I am NOT against paying for the real KWH that is really used, just the flat rate discount they will give you, due to their mismanagement of their bussiness. If you use a O2 converter then you need a discount as they use a fair amount of electric. XPAP does not! Jim

Out of curiosity, do you also express outrage over the other forms of "mismanagement" of electric companies in the form of charitable work? Sponsorship of local sports teams? That sort of thing? Do you think perhaps that the electric discount provided for medical equipment might not just be a loss of profit (i.e. a loss to shareholders only; NOT an added cost to all users)? If you add up the true cost of all of the electric discounts to xpap users, how much do you think that really is? Answer: probably less than the expense tab for alcohol paid to the chief CEO of the utility.

I have thought about inquiring about this in my locale. So I just sent an email to my power company. Surprisingly even in ND and horrible winter weather we do have very few power outages which is a good thing. We shall see.

Brooke

Goofproof wrote:The poor people hooked up to your electric provider, who are going to be sharing the cost of your savings.

You mean the customers who pay a per-KWH amount as determined by THEIR meters? I seriously doubt anyone will see a "Link's CPAP surcharge" on their bill.

Goof wrote: I am NOT against paying for the real KWH that is really used, just the flat rate discount they will give you, due to their mismanagement of their bussiness.

You seem to "know" a lot about FPL's policies and management skills! As clearly stated, *I* don't know IF there is a discount--let alone what it will cover. The letter only addressed priority service. Methinks thou does't ASSume too much...

Dimples wrote:Here in Australia I get a discount on electricity - just filled out a form, got my GP to sign it, and I get a rebate of 16c per day, and priority assistance if there are power outages. The discount is available for all sorts of medical equipment, and the amount varies for each type of equipment.
I'm not sure of the actual cost of running a CPAP and 16c doesn't sound like much, but it adds up over a year, and anything helps.

If you get a discount this is how it should be done, based on needed use by the equipment.

hose_head

"Out of curiosity, do you also express outrage over the other forms of "mismanagement" of electric companies in the form of charitable work? Sponsorship of local sports teams? That sort of thing? Do you think perhaps that the electric discount provided for medical equipment might not just be a loss of profit (i.e. a loss to shareholders only; NOT an added cost to all users)? If you add up the true cost of all of the electric discounts to xpap users, how much do you think that really is? Answer: probably less than the expense tab for alcohol paid to the chief CEO of the utility."

Utilities are something we have little choice in using, every dime they spend makes the cost of every customer go up. Sponsorship of local sports teams, T.V. ad's, donations to the ARTs, are not something they should be doing with our money, if we want to do that on our own, feel free, it will be your money not our money. With utilities we don't have the choice of who we use, we are locked in to one provider usually, if you don't like their policies,you can't go to another. While they are supposed to make a profit, they are supposed to provide their services at the best cost they can. maybe we can get the CEO to attend AA.

From the other thread on this it's apparent that many of the discounts pay back more $ than are used, that means someone else using power from the company has to pick up your share (Socialism) If you need the discount it should be in place to help you, not so you can use the savings to buy more Cig's and Beer, or even HBO. Like Link C says, I'm not a FL expert, I'm going by the response to the other thread, so far only Australia, seems to get it. Jim

LinkC wrote:Who are these mysterious "others"?

By the looks of your profile pic, you should be telling us?

Kahfree wrote:Interesting. After reading this I logged onto my local Gas and Electric Company and found this list of eligible medical equipment for the low cost electricity program and priority program. I assume they feel its important enough to use an APNEA machine to have it on the list. I printed out the form and will bring it to my doctors office on Monday at my visit. Although I do not believe I will die in my sleep while not using the machine for a power outage, I do believe that the cost of purchasing and maintaining the equipment is necessary and therefore I should apply for the discount, as long as they are offering it, why not?

http://www.sdge.com/documents/customer/medbaseline.pdf

I have had the medical program with San Diego Greedy and Expensive since I have been on the Cpap. They don't per-say give us a discount but the give us a higher base rate. also they send out a little red tag for our new smart meters. when they changed everybody to the new meters they had to make a special appointment for them to come out and change the meter. It was we are in another class as medically dependent on the electric now. I think every one that uses the Cpap or Bi-Pap should let their electric utility company know that they use a medical device.
Also once you get set up on that SDG&E will if you are low income set you up on the CARE program. (that's where they triple your bill, give you a discount and then bill the state of Taxifornia)

drj130 wrote:Congrats LinkC.

I've heard of these programs/discounts before in the past. Would be interesting to see how fast they did restore power if there was a failure. Not that I want your power to go out or anything like that.

David

All of the power-lines in my neighborhood are under ground. Every time they work on them or shut them down I get a letter 7 to 10 working days prior to them doing any work.

Last year a couple of months ago some one knocked down a transformer box, the power was out for 18 hours. a couple of weeks after that SDG&E came out a put in a new transformer box (basically they moved it from the side of a driveway) They sent us a letter saying the power would be out for 8 to 12 hours. A week before they did the work, they also put a door hanger on each door in the neighborhood that would be effected the day before.

Goofproof wrote:
Utilities are something we have little choice in using, every dime they spend makes the cost of every customer go up. Sponsorship of local sports teams, T.V. ad's, donations to the ARTs, are not something they should be doing with our money, if we want to do that on our own, feel free, it will be your money not our money. With utilities we don't have the choice of who we use, we are locked in to one provider usually, if you don't like their policies,you can't go to another. While they are supposed to make a profit, they are supposed to provide their services at the best cost they can. maybe we can get the CEO to attend AA.

From the other thread on this it's apparent that many of the discounts pay back more $ than are used, that means someone else using power from the company has to pick up your share (Socialism) If you need the discount it should be in place to help you, not so you can use the savings to buy more Cig's and Beer, or even HBO. Like Link C says, I'm not a FL expert, I'm going by the response to the other thread, so far only Australia, seems to get it. Jim

Can I also complain, then, about the special rates that my utility charges to energy heavy industries or to municipalities for streetlights? They pay a fraction of the cost that I have to. Why are they subsidized? Your model might work if all were charged the same rates. The fact is that there are many different rate structures that are used by utilities. Then why not a discount for medical equipment? Socialism's not necessarily a bad thing.

As a sample point of one, there's no such discount (as far as I can ascertain) in Toronto Ontario. So more than Australia "gets it", from your point of view.

Uncle_Bob wrote:By the looks of your profile pic, you should be telling us?

Good one! A ladybug on the corrector plate (front "lens") will get your heart started!