‘FREE’ GOVT. PHONES COST OTHER PHONE USERS A BUNDLE

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Human Events:

Fraud and abuse continue in a government-run phone service for low-income Americans, and the cost of the Lifeline program continues to escalate in Minnesota, a Watchdog Minnesota Bureau review shows.

 

Despite a supposed federal crackdown on the service, the program remains the gift that keeps on taking from consumers, who pay a Universal Service Fund fee on their phone bills to underwrite the “free” plans.

 

Lifeline began in 1985 as a subsidy to provide basic land-line phone service to low-income families. The addition of cell phone service, however, propelled the national cost of the “uncapped” or open-ended program from $800 million in 2005 to $2.2 billion in 2012.