The Federal Communications Commission is officially looking at complaints that Google Voice blocks calls to rural communities, the Washington Post reports. Google Voice assigns you a telephone number and then directs calls to that number to home phones, cell phones or voice mail. It doesn't replace a phone, but it does manage calls. (See the video for a quick explanation.)

Google, however, blocks calls to conference call services, chat-line numbers or local exchanges it claims have high access fees. Several rural telecom companies say Google is targeting rural America and 20 lawmakers sent a letter to the FCC asking for an inquiry into whether the company was red-lining rural places. AT&T is upset too, claiming Google is avoiding "common carrier" regulations that it and other telecoms must adhere to. Some rural carriers also want the FCC to investigate other services, such as MagicJack and Speakeasy, to see if they are avoiding requirements traditional phone companies must abide by.

Google's response is that the company does restrict calls to numbers controlled by companies that "charge exorbitant termination rates for calls" and "partner with adult sex chat lines and 'free' conference calling centers to drive high volumes of traffic."

The Senate Finance Committee passed its version of health care reform Tuesday afternoon, but Kaiser Health News reminds us that neither this bill nor any of the others sloshing about Congress will do much about the nation's doctor shortage. Phil Galewitz reports: "Even as Congress moves to expand health insurance coverage to millions of Americans, it's doing little to ensure there will be enough primary care doctors to meet the expected surge in demand for treatment, experts say." 

Primary doctors are key to rural health and there aren't enough of them. The American Academy of Family Physicians predicts a shortage of 40,000 primary care docs in the next ten years. (In the chart above, demand is represented by the blue line; supply of primary care doctors is in red.) “I don't see anything in the legislation that will greatly increase the primary care pipeline," said Dr. Russell Robertson, chairman of the Council on Graduate Medical Education. Galewitz said there's general agreement on how to increase the number of primary care doctors: open more residency positions and increase how much primary care doctors are paid. But nobody wants to add these costs into a health reform bill that has a price tag already too large for many to swallow. To add 15,000 Medicare-funded medical residency positions would cost about a billion dollars a year.

Nor has there been much luck adding to the pay of primary care doctors, since the money would have to be wrenched from specialists. But primary care physicians are key to holding down overall health care costs. They make, on average, less than half of the average for specialists.

Is there a way to be "out" without pursuing public "visibility"? A new study of gays and lesbians in the rural U.S. finds activism, pride and, in some cases, satisfaction.

Since when did journalists rely on official press releases for news? Coverage of a recent ban on environmental groups in Navajo Country misses what's happened and what's happening.