Pai Calls for Completing Rural Telehealth Vote

By John Eggerton
published

FCC chairman Ajit Pai is calling for the commission to wrap up a vote on his recent telehealth proposal given the new impetus provided by the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. 

The chairman tweeted that spur Friday (March 13). 

[embed]https://twitter.com/AjitPaiFCC/status/1238460620762157063[/embed]

The draft would fund eligible Rural Health Care Program services through the current funding year by freeing up unused funds from prior years and waiving the cap on upfront payments and multi-year commitments. Pai those represent unnecessary reductions in the funding that need commission action to prevent.  

Some House and Senate Democrats have been pushing the FCC to move aggressively to address the telehealth, telework, and tele-education challenges of coronavirus related quarantines and "social distancing."

John Eggerton
John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.