New York Seeks Lifeline National Verifier Deadline Waiver
New York asked the FCC to delay the Oct. 23 hard launch of the national verifier in that state. “It would very likely cause otherwise eligible low-income consumers to be denied Lifeline benefits during this transitional period,” the Public Service…
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Commission petitioned Monday in docket 11-42. “Real hardship could be imposed on low-income New Yorkers.” A big problem is Universal Service Administrative Co. can’t yet access state Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Medicaid databases, the PSC said. The FCC’s recent announcement of national Medicaid database (see 1909180026) access is “laudable,” but “we estimate that this new verification process has the potential to assist with the automated verification of up to at most 60 percent of the Lifeline eligible population,” the PSC said. New York agencies are “working diligently with USAC” to set up an application programming interface connection for verifying state SNAP recipients, but the “process of establishing a data agreement and API connection with New York is both technically and legally complicated,” the PSC said. The commission cited NARUC’s July resolution recommending suspension of the hard rollout (see 1907240043). The FCC declined comment.