Keeping Lifeline for the Living

The Federal Communications Commission is already taking steps to nix the dead enrollees in the agency’s low-income subsidy program known as Lifeline following a revelation from Sen Claire McCaskill (D-MO) that 47,942 deceased individuals were signed up between 2014 and October 2017. In July 2017,  FCC Chairman Ajit Pai directed the Universal Service Administrative Company, the nonprofit that manages the subsidies, “to take specific, immediate steps to mitigate waste, fraud, and abuse in the Lifeline program, including enrollment and subscribership of the deceased,” a FCC spokesman said. “USAC recently started using information from the Social Security Administration’s Death Master File in the identity validation process, and this step has already prevented hundreds of deceased individuals from enrolling in the program.”

But what of the delayed Obama-era reform to ensure the federal government, rather than phone companies, is responsible for ensuring subsidy recipients meet income requirements? That verifier tool’s rollout was postponed in 2017 due to IT problems and also drew questioning from Sen McCaskill. The FCC spokesman said “more needs to be done” and referred to Chairman Pai “urging USAC to complete the work necessary to get the Lifeline National Eligibility Verifier up and running as soon as possible,” as well as pursuing his own overhaul of the program.