Coalition of Health Providers and Telehealth Networks Urge Congress to Reform the Rural Health Care Program

The Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband (SHLB) Coalition along with 35 health care providers and telehealth networks from across the country sent a letter to Congressional leaders today asking them to support an increase in funding for the Federal Communications Commission’s Rural Health Care (RHC) program. “This is a life and death issue for Rural America,” said John Windhausen, Executive Director of the SHLB Coalition. “Rural communities that encounter a severe shortage of doctors, aging populations, and a greater distance to medical experts are in dire need of easily accessible telemedicine services. The RHC program has the power to elevate the health of these communities, but only if the program is revamped to promote rural broadband." The RHC program is the only Universal Service Fund program that has not been reformed, and it is long overdue. The current $400 million per year cap was set by the FCC twenty years ago. The cap has not been adjusted either for inflation or to reflect massive changes in the healthcare and broadband marketplaces that have occurred since 1997. Increasing the RHC funding cap from $400M to $800M per year would have a huge impact on the availability of affordable broadband services for rural health providers and will have only a minimal impact on the overall size of the $9 Billion Universal Service Fund.