By Sarah Jane Tribble<\/p>\n
KFF Health News<\/a><\/p>\n Megan Waiters can recite the stories of dozens of people she has helped connect to the internet in western Alabama. A 7-year-old who couldn\u2019t do classwork online without a tablet, and the 91-year-old she taught to check health care portals on a smartphone.<\/p>\n Millions of rural Americans live in counties with doctor shortages and where high-speed internet connections aren\u2019t adequate to access advanced telehealth services. A KFF Health News analysis found people in these \u201cdead zones\u201d live sicker and die younger on average than their peers in well-connected regions.<\/p>\n \u201cThey have health care needs, but they don\u2019t have the digital skills,\u201d said Waiters, who is a digital navigator for an Alabama nonprofit. Her work has involved giving away computers and tablets while also teaching classes on how to use the internet for work and personal needs, like banking and health. \u201cIt\u2019s like a foreign space.\u201d<\/p>\n Those stories are now bittersweet.<\/p>\n Waiters is part of a network of digital navigators across the country whose work to bring others into the digital world was, at least in part, propped up by a $2.75 billion federal program that abruptly canceled funding this spring. The halt came after President Donald Trump\u00a0posted on his Truth Social<\/a>\u00a0platform that the Digital Equity Act was unconstitutional and pledged \u201cno more woke handouts based on race!\u201d<\/p>\n The act\u00a0lists exactly whom<\/a>\u00a0the money should benefit, including low-income households, older residents, some incarcerated people, rural Americans, veterans, and members of racial or ethnic minority groups. Politicians, researchers, librarians, and advocates said defunding the program, along with other changes in federal broadband initiatives, jeopardizes efforts to help rural and underserved residents participate in the modern economy and lead healthier lives.<\/p>\n \u201cYou could see lives change,\u201d said Sam Helmick, president of the American Library Association, recalling how they helped grandpas in Iowa check prescriptions online or laid-off factory workers fill out job applications.<\/p>\n The Digital Equity Act is part of the sweeping 2021 infrastructure law, which included $65 billion to build high-speed internet infrastructure and connect millions without access to the internet.<\/p>\n This year, Congress once again pushed for a modern approach to help Americans, mandating that state leaders prioritize new and emerging technologies through its $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Program.<\/p>\n A\u00a0KFF Health News analysis<\/a>\u00a0found that nearly 3 million people in America live in areas with shortages of medical professionals and where modern telehealth services are often inaccessible because of poor internet connections. The analysis found that in about 200 mostly rural counties where dead zones persist,\u00a0residents live sicker and die earlier<\/a>\u00a0on average than people in the rest of the country. Access to high-speed internet is among a host of social factors, like food and safe housing, that help people lead healthier lives.<\/p>\n \u201cThe internet provides this extra layer of resilience,\u201d said Christina Filipovic, who leads the research for an initiative of the Institute for Business in the Global Context at Tufts University. The research group\u00a0found in 2022<\/a>\u00a0that access to high-speed internet correlated with fewer covid deaths, particularly in metro areas.<\/p>\n During the covid-19 pandemic, federal lawmakers launched a subsidy program paid for by the infrastructure law. That aid, called the Affordable Connectivity Program, aimed to connect more people to their jobs, schools, and doctors. In 2024, Congress did not renew funding for the subsidy program, which had enrolled about\u00a023 million low-income households<\/a>.<\/p>\n This year, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick\u00a0revamped and delayed<\/a>\u00a0the infrastructure law\u2019s construction initiative \u2014 known as the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program, or BEAD \u2014 after announcing plans to\u00a0reduce regulatory burdens<\/a>. More than 40 states and territories have submitted final proposals to extend high-speed internet to underserved areas under the administration\u2019s new guidelines, according to a\u00a0Commerce Department dashboard<\/a>.<\/p>\n In May, the Digital Equity Act\u2019s funding was terminated within days of Trump\u2019s Truth Social post. While many states in 2022 had received money to plan their programs, the next round of funding, designated for states and agencies to implement the plans, had largely been awarded but not distributed.<\/p>\n Instead, federal regulators \u2014 including the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the federal agency overseeing implementation of the Digital Equity Act \u2014\u00a0notified recipients<\/a>\u00a0that the grants would be terminated. The grants were created and administered with \u201cunconstitutional racial preferences,\u201d according to the letter.<\/p>\n In Phoenix, officials learned in January that the city was slated to get $11.8 million to increase internet access and teach digital literacy, but they received an email May 20 stating that all grants, \u201cexcept for grants to Native Entities,\u201d had been terminated. \u201cIt\u2019s a shame,\u201d said Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego, a Democrat. The money, she said, would have helped 37,000 residents get internet access.<\/p>\n Georgia\u2019s Democratic leaders in July\u00a0sent a letter<\/a>\u00a0to Lutnick and NTIA\u2019s then-acting administrator, Adam Cassady, urging reinstatement of the money, noting that the federal cut ignores congressional intent and violates public trust.<\/p>\n The act\u2019s creator, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), said\u00a0during an online press conference<\/a> in May that Republican governors in 2024 supported the law and its funding when each state touted completing its required digital equity plans and asked for resources.<\/p>\n \u201cI cannot believe there aren\u2019t Republican governors out there that are going to join with us to fight back on this,\u201d Murray said, adding \u201cthe other way is through courts.\u201d<\/p>\n All 50 states developed digital equity plans after months of focus groups, surveys, and public comment periods. NTIA Digital Equity Director Angela Thi Bennett, during an August 2024 interview with KFF Health News, said the \u201cintentional community engagement\u201d by federal and state leaders to deliver broadband to unserved communities was \u201cthe greatest demonstration of participatory democracy our country has ever seen.\u201d<\/p>\n Thi Bennett could not be reached for comment on this article. NTIA spokesperson Stephen Yusko said the agency \u201cwill not be able to accommodate\u201d a request for an interview with Thi Bennett and did not respond to questions for this article.<\/p>\n You\u2019ve got to educate people who live there, show them the need. If you don’t believe they won’t need it in two weeks wait till they have to go online \u2014 if they have online to go on and a computer and know how to use it \u2014 and do a three step verification for Social Security. It took me two hours and 15 minutes to get mine\u2026 This is why we need to get BEAD and make sure everybody that wants Internet has it. It’s not a luxury anymore. It’s a need.<\/p>\n Erna Bright, a retired telephone network switching technician from Gates County, NC at the 2025 NC Rural Summit<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Caroline Stratton, a research director at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society, said the act\u2019s funding allowed states to staff offices; identify existing high-speed internet programs, including those operating within other state agencies; and create plans to fill the gaps.<\/p>\n \u201cThis sent folks out looking,\u201d Stratton said, to see whether agencies in the state were already working on health improvement plans and to ask whether the broadband work could contribute and \u201cactively help move the needle.\u201d<\/p>\n State grant applications included goals\u00a0to promote health care access<\/a>. In Mississippi, the\u00a0plan consists<\/a>\u00a0of the state university and another agency\u2019s health improvement plan, Stratton said.<\/p>\n While states were required to create programs that would help specific covered populations, some states modified the language or added subcategories to include other populations.\u00a0Colorado\u2019s plan<\/a>\u00a0included immigrants and \u201cindividuals experiencing homelessness.\u201d<\/p>\n\n