Plummeting heating oil prices are a win-lose situation, as customers who locked stratospheric prices last summer are suffering from an unaffordable burden, while others reap benefits from their patience.

Sound familiar? The same scenario played out nationally – as prices (or values) declined, those who were heavily leveraged in crumbling markets collapsed. You might have read about it in this newspaper.

It was called the financial meltdown.

Its corollary was the bailout, which flooded Wall Street with taxpayer millions to stave insolvency. Rhetoric from Washington, D.C., said this rescue was needed for not only Wall Street’s health, but Main Street’s as well.

Main Street is still struggling. In Maine, those struggling more than most are people of limited or fixed incomes who locked oil contracts for fear of price escalation, stemming from market conditions they played no role in creating.

(Quite unlike Wall Street.)

High oil costs did allow for more low-income heating funds to be allocated for Maine. The state is mulling what to do with the additional money.

Here’s an idea: Allocate some to help Mainers locked in unaffordable oil contracts. The principle is the same, after all – helping people of limited financial means afford heat this winter. It’s just a different way of doing it.

And after all, these innocent people are actually worthy of bailout – more than any investment bank, that’s for sure.