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FCC crackdown on cellphone subsidies leaves millions without service
The Ajit Pai-era FCC has spent much of its energy cracking down on claimed abuses of the Lifeline subsidy program, but this anti-fraud effort may be hurting low-income households more than it helps. The investigative news outlet Center for Public Integrity has used FCC data to determine that nationwide enrollment for cellphone subsidies has dropped by about 2.3 million people, or 21 percent, since 2017. The cuts have been particularly severe in places like the District of Columbia, where 49 percent of Lifeline users lost their subsidies between March 2018 and June 2019. Mississippi, Wyoming and Puerto Rico also lost a third or more of their enrollment in the same time frame.
Some of the problems may stem from a verifier system that was approved in 2016. It was meant to automatically check whether people qualified for Lifeline service and reduce fraud, but its incomplete access to benefit databases appears to have rejected people who were eligible for the program. Enrollment has plunged in those six states where the verifier launched, although a connection to the Medicaid database (and ideally state databases) might solve some of these problems.
However, the current FCC's crackdown (including ongoing support of the verifier) is raising concerns that it's simply interested in cutting off support for poor people, in sync with a presidency that has focused on cutting other benefits for low-income homes. There are particular concerns that changes due in December may prompt carriers to quit Lifeline and leave customers without access. Networks are supposed to help Lifeline recipients by providing more data and phasing out support for call minutes, but they're expected to complain when the subsidy amounts to less than $10 per month.
Based on a story from USA Today
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 07 2019, @02:58AM (25 children)
Thank God for all that tax money they get.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday November 07 2019, @03:30AM (24 children)
The FCC has become a corporate mouthpiece. It is, in fact, doing precisely the opposite of its stated purpose as a government organ.
This is what is known as "regulatory capture." You may as well blame an ant infected with Cordyceps for deliberately spreading spores and endangering its colony. Of course, I'm sure you haven't the intelligence or depth of thought to analyze it to this level; you just wanted to get some Internet cool points with the rebellious-manchild-with-a-modem set who think a reflexive anti-regulation stance is trendy. Idiot.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 07 2019, @04:03AM (19 children)
Oh really? What a surprise...
Reminds me of the war on drugs, war on poverty, war on terror, war on cancer, Obamacare, the FTC, the SEC, the DOD, social security, government backed student loans, government backed housing loans, etc, etc.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday November 07 2019, @04:57AM (17 children)
Money and lobbying and bribery corrupt fucking everything. Regulatory capture is a blasphemous cancer.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 07 2019, @05:09AM (16 children)
Unfortunately you want to put the government in charge of even more shit, instead of less. The latter would reduce all those bad things.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday November 07 2019, @06:13AM (11 children)
I'm gonna have to hit you with a [citation needed] there, on BOTH those counts. You aren't a psychic, you're not reading my mind, and you don't actually know what my positions are. You're another lazy, worthless whiner who thinks 1) there are simple solutions and 2) you know them.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 07 2019, @06:39AM (8 children)
You were able to articulate the simple reason why these problems keep growing, but are too brainwashed to realize that simply reversing it will make the problems shrink.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Thursday November 07 2019, @12:28PM (1 child)
And you are still having the delusion that the opposite of something bad must be something good.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 07 2019, @12:52PM
It is not just the opposite, it is that reversing a process will have the opposite effect.
Say the fed pumps liquidity into the economy to pump a bubble, promising to reverse it later without having the opposite effect. Would you believe them? The people who thought like me were right and are making money, the people who thought some complicated mechanism would prevent that were wrong, and lost money.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday November 07 2019, @03:27PM (5 children)
That is some Ralph-Wiggum-tier naive stupidity there. Pull your finger out of your nose and *think.* We need to regulate smarter, not harder, and step one of smarter regulation is to make sure that it can't be corrupted from within. I've likened this to the problems faced by a concrete slab without rebar; does fine under compression, as concrete does, but any tension stress will crack it clean in half. Consider corruption, bribery, regulatory capture, and plain old cutting corners the equivalent of tension stress.
The "rebar" in this case is, like the literal rebar in a literal slab, going to have to be orthogonal to the slab and of a different sort of material. In this case, it's going to have to be meta-laws, or laws *about* laws, statutes that lay heavy fines and jail time for manipulating and perverting said regulations.
Your idea about just "reversing" the process won't work. We'd end up back in the late 19th century again where anyone could sell anything as anything. Do you really want that? Do you think you'd survive more than a few weeks in a world like that?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 07 2019, @05:24PM (1 child)
I'll consider corruption, etc as simply something that always happens when the gov gets involved. Since that is reality.
And I have no idea why you think people would start dying off in weeks if "anyone could sell anything again".
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday November 08 2019, @03:49AM
You don't know your history, do you? Go look up what was in some of those patent "medicines"--literal snake oil would have been a major improvement! And of course, tainted meat full of rat feces and sawdust is JUST the thing to promote a healthy digestion. And while you're at it, dose your cranky baby with morphine and opium so s/he'll sleep through a night. Brush your teeth with radium toothpaste for that literally-glowing look.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by digitalaudiorock on Thursday November 07 2019, @05:35PM
For sure...and a huge part of that starts with not electing a president who's hell bent on heading every regulating agency with corporate enemies of said agency.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 07 2019, @10:26PM (1 child)
What are you referring to here? What would be killing people off in a few weeks?
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday November 08 2019, @03:37AM
Tainted meat, patent "medicine," radium in the toothpaste and watch dials (okay, that one would take more than a few weeks...), the list goes on. All these things happened, and if you had the historical awareness Madokami gave to, for example, the average tree stump, you'd know that.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 07 2019, @06:43AM (1 child)
psyro://Azuma-Hazuki/left-frontal-lobe/afc54412e8c34018961f2c1536b039e9?position=strapon&position=ridingcowgirl.
If it doesn't work, you should update your browser.
And don't make me switch to unencrypted psyrw:
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday November 07 2019, @03:34PM
Joke's on you. I'm part Dark-type and you're very clearly not running Miracle Eye or Mold Breaker. Psychic immunity is pretty useful!
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 07 2019, @12:03PM (3 children)
Broadly speaking, Azuma Hazuki is probably advocating one of three possible solutions to corrupt government: socialism, libertarianism, or anarchism (anarchism as in Mikhail Bakunin, not Mad Max or Joker).
Socialism has the risk that the government stops serving the people and serve itself. For example, the USSR or 'Communist' North Korea (which isn't communist, just a dictatorship). But to be fair, if you study world history without the blinders they give you in American elementary school and high school you'll realize capitalists have killed and enslaved even more people than Stalin and Mao.
Libertarianism is pretty much exactly what the US has now. The government removes regulations, and the libertarians celebrate. Then oligarchs take advantage of the removed regulations to buy a few legislators and pass new laws that work in their favor. The libertarian fantasy that the government can be dismantled and will stay dismantled is every bit as absurd as the Bolshevik fantasy of communist Russia.
Anarchism is probably the wisest of human political philosophies by recognizing that bureaucracies are always corrupt. Unfortunately even the most successful anarchist societies, like Free Ukraine or parts of Spain before their civil war, couldn't overcome the core problem that evil outsiders invaded and conquered them. Free Ukraine operated with many millions of residents for several years and no central governing body. Then they got conquered.
Looks like we're fucked no matter what. But you were wrong to blanket assume she's a socialist authoritarian.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 07 2019, @12:23PM
I've come to the conclusion that people believing this BS is why it has been so ridiculously damn easy for me to make money trading.
The US has a centrally controlled and manipulated economy, believe otherwise and you will get hurt. Idiots preaching false crap like that to each other just makes them easy to take advantage of.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday November 07 2019, @03:31PM
I'm not sure why anyone modded you down, especially not Troll, since this is one of the more reasonable posts I've seen on the thread.
My actual position, not that any of the actual trolls ever gave a damn in the first place, is something like what the Nordic countries or Canada are doing, combined with a heavy emphasis on energy and potable water independence, especially where it's possible to build desalinization plants next to a big concentrating-solar, wind, or thorium fission plant. I think before anything else we need to get our shit together infrastructure-wise and disentangle ourselves from the Middle East.
That's going to need something like a modern, energy-focused cross between the Manhattan Project and the Civilian Conservation Corps. Government-led, yes, expensive, yes, but the kind of thing that pays dividends monetarily and geopolitically for well over a century and puts us in a much safer position. From there, we can focus on fixing our culture from the inside.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday November 07 2019, @06:23PM
Evaluating solutions independently and selecting the most helpful based on what works and not insisting on any one particular ideology... Fuck her, right!
(Score: 2) by stretch611 on Thursday November 07 2019, @11:24PM
Well, lets see...
Obamacare was to make healthcare more affordable and also lower the number of people without health insurance.
It worked in both ways. Quite well. In fact a majority of US citizens like Obamacare. Especially on the item of not denying pre-existing conditions.
It only stopped working in that mandate when Trump decided to get rid of it, and because he could not do it legislatively, he started dismantling it piecemeal.
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 07 2019, @07:48AM (3 children)
Sexist strikes again, assuming it is a "man". Could be a lesbian standing up to the big bull, you know!
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday November 07 2019, @03:22PM (2 children)
Unlikely. Let's be real here: this always has been, and still remains today, a man's world. Very few women of any sexual orientation are in positions of any real power, and a distressing number of *them* have been corrupted by money and power to the point where they happily throw other women *and* men under the bus.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 07 2019, @05:35PM (1 child)
It would be wise to your worldview so you stop being surprised by the same thing over and over.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday November 08 2019, @03:39AM
I'm not surprised, just saddened. It's something I was expecting to happen but hoping against hope wouldn't. When you get right down to it, greed is the cardinal human sin and everyone (yes, even me) has their price.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2, Disagree) by SomeGuy on Thursday November 07 2019, @03:07AM (13 children)
Subsidies for cellphones? Why? Get a real telephone. There should not be subsidies for toy consumer products that people don't really need.
They make it sound like people can't live without cell phones. Well, of course they do, they want to sell cell phones.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 07 2019, @03:11AM (12 children)
Your post is boomer lawn diarrhea, no doubt about that, but the government is sending SMS alerts to people so your argument is invalid. Let them have feature phones.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday November 07 2019, @03:15AM (11 children)
Let them pay for it themselves.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 07 2019, @03:20AM
Just use some of the NSA's black budget and let them have $10 surveillance phones for free. Everybody wins.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday November 07 2019, @03:33AM (9 children)
Good idea! And while we're at it, let's make people pay for food inspection, water treatment, drug monitoring, and the specific segment of the road right in front of their places of residence out of pocket too, right?
Oh, and let's not forget the military. But waaaait, I remember you saying public financing for the military is a "necessary evil." After all, we need to be able to defend the nightmarish Randian dystopia we'd create by privatizing everything else against all those "invaders" who'd want to take it from us, right, you soldier-sucking jock-sniffing moron? 9_9
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday November 07 2019, @03:43AM (8 children)
Cell phones aren't a necessity, they're a toy.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Informative) by jasassin on Thursday November 07 2019, @03:57AM (3 children)
You sound butthurt that geriatric people are getting subsidies for a device that is necessary to communicate with doctors offices and family to ask them for a ride to appointments. Before you go off about land lines, those too will be subsidized anyway. I'm not sure where you're going with this. Cell phones are more useful than a land line. If their car breaks down on the road, for example, they can call Triple A or a family member for help. Also, a lot of elderly people don't have computers, so they can use their phone to look up information.
I'm usually on the same page as you, but in this case you are being a dick.
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday November 07 2019, @11:25PM (2 children)
I'm butthurt that they don't want to earn their ability to walk and talk like the rest of us. They want me to fucking pay for it. They want me to work harder so they don't have to. Fuck them.
Also, being as we've done without them for around two hundred millennia, your argument is shit. The convenience of others is not something I'm willing to work more hours for.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by jasassin on Friday November 08 2019, @05:37AM (1 child)
There are numerous reasons why geriatric people can't walk, and there's no earning that ability back when you get that old with conditions that simply arise from old age.
You mean back when generations lived in the same small village? Times have changed. People live further away from their parents and grandparents. It's no longer a matter of waiting for the hunter gatherer to come back. Your argument is shit.
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday November 08 2019, @11:25PM
"walk and talk" were not two separate abilities but the combination of the two. If they're not mobile, they don't need their phone to be either.
Dude, I mean the entirety of human history up to the late 90s. Something does not suddenly become necessary simply because it's convenient. And with the abysmal quality of cellular voice compared to landline voice, it's not even very fucking convenient.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 07 2019, @04:34AM (3 children)
Try applying for a job without a cellphone. They will send you your interview time by SMS. If you don't respond in kind within a couple of minutes you get roundfiled as having skipped the appointment.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 07 2019, @11:43AM
Wrong. Most will send a proper e-mail notification that can be responded to within a day or so. Any idiots that try to rely only on SMS, you probably don't want to work for.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by SomeGuy on Thursday November 07 2019, @12:37PM
Actually, that would be incredibly evil. That would exclude the increasing number of people who work (but are still looking for other jobs) in secure areas where cell phones are forbidden. It would also be a problem for people who drive a lot, where cell phone usage is ILLEGAL. Of course, it would exclude poor people who choose not to purchase an expensive smart phone just for that use, and check e-mail on library/friends/company computers. - which is sort of what the article is about, but subsides are NOT the answer. No problem if someone sends a text IN ADDITION to an e-mail or other communications methods, but locking people in to one proprietary method is very, very, wrong.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday November 07 2019, @11:27PM
I've never had an employer text me about acquiring a job. After the fact for day to day operations when they knew I had a cell phone, sure. It was not remotely a job requirement for anyone I've ever worked for though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jasassin on Thursday November 07 2019, @03:37AM (3 children)
That's really gonna help granny set up her doctor appointments. What's she supposed to do, text the doctors office? Yeah right! Phase out the data and phase in more minutes, you stupid son of a bitches. That is the dumbest shit I have ever heard of!
FFS.
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 07 2019, @03:52AM
The real problem is that grannies don't charge their phones. They let that battery die every time.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Thursday November 07 2019, @03:11PM (1 child)
You know I'm not a grammar Nazi. You're not either. But, just take a look at what you typed.
Singular, or plural son? Singular or plural bitches? I dunno, for sure, but I don't think you said exactly what you meant to say . . . then again, maybe you did? Maybe these are quantum bitches.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday November 07 2019, @11:28PM
It depends on if "son of a bitch" should be treated as a proper noun or not. If it is, what he said was correct, aside from needing to be capitalized.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by shortscreen on Thursday November 07 2019, @07:30AM
Why do we need a federal government program to administer subsidies for something that costs $10/month? Especially one that apparently compels users and providers to jump through hoops and necessitates government employees to then sniff out "fraud." This is a giant waste of time.
If providers are overcharging for service (how's that latest mega-merger going, BTW??), offering a special subsidized plan for 10m people doesn't solve the problem for the other 300m people. Next thing you know, someone will want to expand the subsidies because prices will have gone up, and pretty soon US phone service will look like US healthcare or US education.
Last time I checked, Tello's service can be had for about $10/month without asking permission from bureaucrats.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Bot on Thursday November 07 2019, @08:59AM
In my own experience, the sellers pocket the subsidies and price items to the supposed spending capacity of the buyer anyway. Seen for cars, home improvement. Subsidies for sports create bureaucracy and ties between politicians and sellers.
But for once I advocate statalism. The market drives the poorer 5% off some needed service? The state must provide that service. Banking, communication, transportation. The poor will pay for it with social service (the indentured servitude that everyone abhors when is direct and everyone tolerates when it is mediated arbitrarily by money, go figure). The state does not compete with the market because the market has already decreed those people were not potential clients.
Yes in practice this could fail, yet in practice subsidies fail harder.
Account abandoned.