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LifeLine is a service that has been around for many years, but has only just started making headlines, with President Barack Obama’s reform to this program that was first established under former President Ronald Reagan.

Reagan first introduced this program to help low income families with their house phone bills, cutting the bills down to more affordable prices. As the times went on, and technology became more of a basic need, it became clear that just helping out with landlines wasn’t enough.

Obama hit the nail on the head when he said at a middle school address, “We can’t be stuck in the 19^th century when we’re living in a 21^st century economy”. He decided to take LifeLine one step further by providing free basic cell phones to qualifying low income individuals.

This is an advantage in today’s society because with the job market being what it is, it looks highly unprofessional to not have any phone number to list or to be only checking e-mail sporadically.

Brent A. Wilkes, executive director of the League of United Latin American Citizens agrees, saying in an interview with NBC Latino that the new LifeLine program “could bolster employment rates along those (Latino) communities”.

This could be a huge advantage to the economy since there will be more citizens creating revenue, boosting our economy as opposed to dragging it down. Not only does it provide opportunities for jobs, it also comes in handy with emergencies and other situations in which a phone will be necessary to save your life or another’s.

The program won’t cost as much as people think it will, the estimates have been placed between $2-6 billion, when in reality, it will only cost taxpayers a grand total of $1.2 billion. This does not require any taxes to be raised in cost, the plan is to merely take the money from the Medicaid and food stamp programs, as these are two of the many requirements you have to have in order to qualify for the “Obama phone”.

If your grandmother fell down and you needed to call an ambulance but couldn’t because you don’t have a phone, where would that leave you and your family? The LifeLine program can be something that will help Americans as a whole if people would be more willing to accept it as such instead of trying to fight it.

All it takes is for Americans to see the bigger picture of how this program will help.

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