Disability Programs Growing Too Quickly, Costs Must Be Contained, O'Rielly Says
FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly warned the newly reconstituted Disability Advisory Committee that the cost of FCC disability-related programs is growing too quickly. The agency needs to consider other options, such as reverse auctions, to determine funding levels, he said Wednesday. “Draconian” measures are likely unless costs are contained, he said.
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The cost of programs serving those with disabilities is growing at an “aggressive and unsustainable rate,” O’Rielly said. The programs will cost $1.5 billion this year, up from $1 billion three years ago, he said. “We simply cannot carry out our overall mission to disabled individuals if the programs face runaway spending,” he said. DAC has an “obligation” to help contain costs, he said.
The agency needs to move away from “specialized services with proprietary equipment, and toward increased use and adoption of modern communications technology to serve the most vulnerable populations,” O’Rielly said. “This means more use of email, text, video chat, real-time text and the like,” he said. “Substitutable services need to be employed to a greater extent to drive down overall costs.” Most Americans are making far fewer voice calls, O’Rielly said. Trying to make communications for the disabled equivalent to voice service “makes no sense and is extremely costly.”
O’Rielly thanked those who had returned to the committee for signing up for “another round of pain and aggregation.” He told new members, “Forget you heard that at all. The work is all rainbows and sunshine.” The 37-member DAC met for the first time under its new charter, for a term ending in December 2020.
The FCC is “committed to ensuring that persons with disabilities have equal access to 21st-century telecommunications products and services,” said Michael Carowitz, special counsel to Chairman Ajit Pai. As Pai observed at the conclusion of the second term of the panel, “we take our commitment seriously, and this new and third term of the DAC, like its predecessors” will “play a key role in that effort,” Carowitz said.
The agency continues to move forward, Carowitz said. “Your two-year term will produce recommendations for the commission that will be instrumental in addressing a whole lot of issues.” He cited a February order (see 1902140032) that took effect this week that integrates IP captioned telecom service into the telecom relay service registration database.
The first two DACs produced 28 recommendations, said Commissioner Geoffrey Starks. “The citations to the DAC recommendations are found throughout the commission's most consequential accessibility documents.”