Rural Healthcare Fund Should Be Hiked to $600 Million or $800 Million, Alaska Telco Says
The FCC rural healthcare USF annual budget should be increased to $600 million, from its current $400 million, "merely to account for the past two decades of inflation," Alaska Communications told Commissioner Mignon Clyburn and aides. To account for changes…
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in the rural healthcare environment and scope of the program, an increase to $800 million is justified, said the telco's filing posted Tuesday in docket 02-60. The pool of eligible applicants is expanding to include skilled nursing facilities, rural healthcare demand is growing, and provider costs are rising to address privacy, security, bandwidth and other needs, said company, which called the USF support "essential" for serving remote rural areas in Alaska. It urged more program transparency on Universal Service Administrative Co. review of funding requests, and it cited its concerns about, and proposed conditions for, Liberty Interactive's planned buy of General Communication (see 1706200044).