While the spotlight has been on Medicare cuts and the budget deal, one of the most anti-consumer measures ever to emerge from Congress is creeping forward in the shadows.
Both the Senate and House have approved drastic changes in laws protecting users of telephone, cable and other media services, and a conference committee is expected to report its version by year’s end.
Language in the bills would allow deregulation of cable-TV rates, a move the Consumers Federation of America estimates will result in a 50 percent increase in consumer fees by the year 2000.
It would also remove the ability of states to regulate the profits of local telephone monopolies like Ameritech, undermining efforts to assure meaningful competition and fair costs for consumers. Illinois is on a negotiated schedule to move toward such competition, and that effort would be torpedoed by the congressional bills.
Unless there is real competition, as evidenced by choice for consumers over vendors, we need regulatory oversight to prevent monopolistic abuses. Nothing in these bills would create such competition or adequately protect Illinois consumers of cable and telephone services.
It is extremely important that the consumer interests are carefully protected in any revision of regulatory law. Congress should not act hastily to undermine existing protections.
