The FCC versus your health

[Commentary] The Federal Communications Commission’s recent decision to regulate the Internet with the same law that was created for “Ma Bell” before World War II has plenty of implications for the health innovation economy. The era of “permission-less innovation” may be coming to an end as the FCC will scrutinize telemedicine applications and other broadband-enabled health care services because they involve connectivity. If Congress can act quickly to rein in the FCC, a disaster can be averted. Network neutrality, as regulated by the FCC in some 300 pages of rules, threatens one of the most promising areas of innovation in health care -- using mobile devices to maintain and improve people’s health. If allowed, new health technologies will emerge with new business models.

Managing chronic diseases and enabling health care by mobile applications represents low-hanging fruit not only to reduce health care costs, but to improve patient outcomes. The price of a mobile subscription is insignificant compared with the cost of a heath care emergency or adverse event that can be prevented through connected devices and applications -- not to mention the value of well-being. It would seem that health care providers could subsidize their patients’ mobile subscriptions outright because of the high cost-benefit ratio. But that possibility will be obliterated by FCC and net neutrality extremists who believe that the consumer should bear all the costs of connectivity. Allowing FCC’s new rules to happen would cause the most promising area of innovation in US health care to blow up on the launching pad. This new generation of health entrepreneurs should be allowed to develop payment models without the FCC’s permission. Congress must intervene to stop FCC’s forthcoming crime against patients.

[Roslyn Layton studies Internet economics at the Center for Communication, Media, and Information Technologies at Aalborg University in Copenhagen, Denmark]