So should emergency physicians hope that VoIP does not survive Congress so that California could better fund its emergency services? Yesterday I pointed to the California Medical Socieity's President's proposal. Today, Congress wants to preserve the subsidy for rural and low income "plain old telephone service" (POTS).
The Wednesday, July 7 hearing, "VoIP: Will the Technology Disrupt the Industry or Will Regulation Disrupt the Technology?" should open a small window on this policy making process.
It seems intuitively more reasonable for subsidy to accrue to the same business rather than across businesses. Not that telephone taxes haven't funded wars, but at least the present subsidy goes to deliver telephone services to more users, not EMS.
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