FIBER TO THE HMO

Talk about getting a lump of coal in your stocking. This month Verizon announced it would freeze the pension and retiree medical benefits of 50,000 management employees at the end of next June. The news is just the latest in the unfortunate but widespread trend of disappearing pension and health benefits among large, long-lived U.S. companies. But Verizon employees need not let it ruin their holidays. A report last week from the New Millennium Research Council claimed the U.S. government could save hundreds of billions of dollars in health-care costs as a result of accelerated broadband deployment. (Using high-speed connections, patients' health could be monitored in their own homes rather than in nursing homes. Some could keep working as telecommuters. And so on.) Surely Verizon can put two and two together. In place of missing health benefits, Verizon should offer its retiring managers free fiber-to-the-home service to help them save on medical costs. The plan could maintain the familiar features of modern managed care: Employees would get to pick their own technicians for installs and enjoy higher discounts for being “in-network” — literally. Family members could be covered, too, with the help of Wi-Fi access nodes in the home. PPOs could be replaced by PPPoEs. It would also give Verizon 50,000 loyal FiOS customers (as long as they keep living, at least). If only more elderly folks knew the health benefits of fiber.