Congressional Republicans and President Donald Trump’s administration are taking aim at a $42 billion infrastructure program launched in 2021 to bring high-speed internet to all Americans.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Republican critics say the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program<\/a> from former President Joe Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure law has been slow to get “shovels into the ground<\/a>.” U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick last week said the program had too many “woke mandates” and announced a “rigorous review.”\u00a0<\/p>\n Democrats, though, say a pause in the program will only further delay construction. More delays mean America’s least connected, least healthy counties will continue to wait for the high-speed internet needed to use telehealth, which is one of the few bipartisan solutions for rural health care shortages.\u00a0<\/p>\n Here’s what our reporting found: Lots of people are waiting for high-speed internet. And that’s hurting them.\u00a0<\/p>\n My colleague Holly K. Hacker mapped federal broadband data and, working with researchers from George Washington University, found that nearly 3 million people live in more than 200 mostly rural counties where in-person care is extremely limited and telehealth is largely out of reach.\u00a0<\/p>\n Those “dead zone” counties are concentrated in regions often pinpointed for having inadequate services: Appalachia, the rural South, and the remote West. The analysis also showed that people who live in these counties tend to be sicker and die earlier than most other Americans.\u00a0<\/p>\n Back in September 2020, I wrote an article <\/a>about Trump’s first administration announcing a sweeping plan to transform health care in rural America. The word “telehealth” appeared in the plan more than 90 times. I wanted to understand whether telehealth could<\/em> really help rural places, like where I grew up in Kansas.\u00a0<\/p>\n In the coming months, we’ll take you to some dead zone counties to answer that question. The first feature, which published and aired this week<\/a>, follows Barbara Williams, who lives in Greene County, Alabama, and is managing diabetes without a dependable internet connection.\u00a0<\/p>\n That can mean “a huge difference in diabetes outcomes,” said Nestoras Mathioudakis, an endocrinologist and the co-medical director of Johns Hopkins Medicine Diabetes & Education Program.\u00a0<\/p>\n KFF Health News<\/a> is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF\u2014an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF<\/a>.<\/p>\nUSE OUR CONTENT<\/h3>\n