In April 2017, the Alaska Legislature www.akleg.gov passed the resolution (HJR 14) calling for additional federal resources to help expand access to telehealth in rural Alaska. The bill sponsored by Alaska’s Speaker of the House Bryce Edgmon http://akhouse.org/rep-edgmon represents many remote communities in Southwest Alaska.
The bill asks the FCC to increase the Rural Health Care Universal Service Budget to sufficiently adjust for inflation and to keep up with advances in broadband technology. The Universal Service budget has been capped at $400 million since it was established in 1997.
Today, after 20 years of dramatic advances in broadband-dependent telehealth technologies and increased utilization of these services, FCC expects the demand to exceed the budget cap for the first time.
While the budget for the Rural Health Care Universal Services Program has remained unchanged for so long, the budget for the FCC’s E-Rate Program for schools was increased by over $1.6 billion in 2015.
In other state legislative action, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) www.ftc.gov and the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) www.doj.gov Antitrust Division have recommended that Alaska repeal their Certificate-of-Need (CON) laws.
These laws require healthcare providers to obtain state approval before expanding, establishing new facilities or services, or making certain large capital expenditures. The FTC and DOJ submitted a joint statement regarding the proposed Senate Bill 62 that would repeal Alaska’s CON laws.
According to a joint statement, the FTC and DOJ have urged states to consider repealing or reforming their CON laws because they can prevent the efficient functioning of healthcare markets and harm consumers.
CON laws can create barriers to entry and expansion, limit consumer choice, deny consumers the benefit of an effective remedy for antitrust violations, facilitate anticompetitive agreements, and stifle innovation.