Policy director at the Benton Foundation and daniel lyons is with American Enterprise Institutes Center for Internet Communications and technology. Hes a visiting scholar there from boston college. Amina fazlullah, what is this Lifeline Program . Howd it come about . Guest so the Lifeline Program actually came about during the Reagan Administration in order to provide a subsidy to make sure that low income persons would have access to Voice Service, Telephone Service. And, you know, this comes from the notion that having everyone on the network, having access to public safety, having access to each other and commerce is incredibly important. And for low income be persons, making sure that they had Additional Support to do that seemed necessary, and so thats where the program began. Host and how many people participate in this program . Guest as of this past year, about 13 million. Host and whats the cost . Guest well, so the cost of the program is, so its a 925 subsidy per household. H
Recommendations, and theyre in the process of doing them. Thats correct. We had informal discussions as well as the formal letter responding to our recommendations. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I want to thank our two witnesses. Lord knows where we would be if we didnt have gao and Inspector Generals. The alarming malfeasance and incompetence of the rollout of this plan is just stunning. And here we are, you know, we cant just simply brush it off and say, well, this was a bad start, but everythings going great now. The cost to the taxpayer probably well never know. But thank goodness that we have your organizations providing us information and spurring on a seemingly bureaucratic nightmare that exists within the federal government in terms of handling these kinds of programs. Anybody in the private sector that had done this would have been bankrupt. Investors would have lost all their money. Its just stunning to continue to observe what it takes to get these agenci
The drug costs patients 129,000. The same cost for patients in other countries about a third of that amount. I realize the pharmaceutical Companies Invest their researches, they bring a new drug to market, they should profit from that innovation, but why are the u. S. Patients getti getting gauged for drugs. Can you better explain why u. S. Taxpayers are paying for Biomedical Research at the front end and paying exorbitant prices at the back end . Ill just say that 50 of my colleagues and myself sent a letter to you and secretary burwell requesting that they write when taxpair funded research leads to patent product not available to the public on reasonable terms . What are reasonable terms . A drug shouldnt cost 129,000 for people to get access to it. I know this is a topic of great interest, and while it should be and my heart goes out as all of us do to patients who are in need of a therapeutic which is outside of their financial means to be able to gain access to. That ought to be
Night, in lookay at the fcc Lifeline Subsidy Program in a plan to include Broadband Access in order to bridge the Digital Divide between higher and lower income americans. The fcc expects to take up the proposal at the end of the month. We will talk with the policy director at the Benton Foundation and daniel lion. We are joined by brandon sasso. Low income consumers need access to broadband. That unclear to me congress would be able to pass a support for directly aimed at low income users. This congress has not been particularly supportive of folks who are in poverty. The conversations that have been on the hill have been hard to decipher. They are putting the cart before the horse or they have not been a study to suggest that these are the drivers keeping low income people from adopting broadband service. We do not know if we need nine dollars a month for 10 Million People or 45 month for 2 Million People. You have to make sure you are employing the money effectively. Fcc has not don
Do you support the president s efforts to engage with cuba . If you support those efforts, the phone number is 202 7488000. If you oppose those efforts, 202 7488001. A special line for cubanamericans, 202 7488002. You can also catch up with us on social media on twitter and facebook. A very good monday morning to you and we begin talking about the president s historic trip to cuba. Here are some of the front pages. Wall street journal. Andomatic relations begin there is a picture of the president in the streets of havana. The front page of the washington times. Front page of the new york times, the headline as obama arrives, cuba tightens grip on dissent. Stopdent obamas first after arriving was the embassy where he made brief remarks to the staff at the newly opened embassy. Here are some of his remarks. Hello, everybody. As the ambassadors stated, it has been nearly 90 years since a u. S. President stepped foot in cuba. It is wonderful to be here. Back in 1928, president coolidge bat