Posted on 06/13/2017 5:02:03 AM PDT by Kaslin
I'm technically disabled -- but not mentally disabled the way some of my foes on CNN seem to believe I am. No, my disability is hearing loss. In one ear I'm nearly deaf.
I have to turn the TV up so loud the neighbors say they can hear it from their house next door. My friends complain that watching TV with me is like watching Garrett Morris on "Saturday Night Live" shout into the camera to provide news for the hard of hearing.
There are some 30 million Americans like me suffering from severe to moderate hearing loss. Not being able to hear precisely what people are saying is an occupational handicap, for sure.
I also lose my prescription hearing aid at least three or four times a year. These little gizmos are expensive, costing as much as $3,000 (I can't get insurance anymore because of my pre-existing condition of carelessness), and so having access to cheaper over-the-counter hearing devices is an attractive option.
Granted, the non-prescription aids don't work as well, but in a pinch they sure work a lot better than no hearing aid at all. Some of the devices at Walmart are so cheap that they are practically disposable.
Congress will soon vote on a bill called the Over-the-Counter Hearing Aid Act that would allow much easier access to over-the-counter hearing aids. And get this: The bill is bipartisan, sponsored by Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Reps. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Joseph Kennedy (D-Mass.). (This may be the first and last time I've ever been on the side of Elizabeth Warren!)
Here's why this bill is important to the health and well-being of millions of Americans like me. According to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine's report "Hearing Health Care for Adults," more than two-thirds of the 30 million people in the U.S. with hearing loss may benefit from hearing aids but do not use them.
Why don't they? Because they're too expensive. A 2014 report by the Consumer Technology Association finds that the high price for prescription aids is a major barrier to consumers. Prescription hearing aids typically cost $1,000 to $6,000, or about 10 times the cost of OTC aids.
Current law prohibits over-the-counter personal sound amplification performance systems (PSAPs) from making any claim to treat hearing loss. The Food and Drug Administration, which regulates hearing aids, places prohibitions on advertising for these cheaper devices, claiming they don't significantly improve hearing. I can personally attest that PSAPs do help, especially when standing in a crowded room with a lot of ambient noise or talking on the phone.
Under the new law PSAPS could be marketed and sold as a more affordable hearing aid alternative to people with hearing loss. The highest quality prescription hearing aids that are personalized and fitted for each patient and superior in quality would still be available and regulated by the FDA.
This would seem to be a no-brainer. It would drive down prices for all hearing devices by increasing choice and competition. The opponents to the bill are the doctors and the manufacturers of the expensive aids. They are against competition -- of course. It's the same sort of rent-seeking lobbying that taxicab companies use to keep Uber out of cities.
What we have here is a classic case of regulation promoted by the regulated industry in order to keep prices high and keep out cheaper alternatives -- all under the phony guise of "consumer protection."
We now have over-the-counter reading glasses, over-the-counter painkillers and over-the-counter flu medicines. These options don't prevent people from getting prescriptions for heavier drug dosages or more personalized contacts and eyeglasses.
One worry is that this new law will give the FDA additional powers to regulate over-the-counter devices. Conservatives should be arguing that there is no compelling reason for the FDA to be regulating this industry at all. You're not going to die if you get snookered and buy a bad hearing aid.
This should be the first step in a pro-consumer crusade to severely limit FDA regulations on the sale of scores of medical devices and drugs when there is no issue of endangerment. Why does the FDA have to regulate hearing aids, dental and skin care products, Viagra, wheelchairs and so on?
Everyone in Washington, from both parties, keeps saying that they are for "affordable care." Here's one way they can make that a reality for tens of millions of Americans. Is anyone listening?
So you’re against big government overreach UNLESS it benefits you?
Show me in The Constitution where it says “Provide for the common good AND hearing-aids”. I missed that.
The reason hearing aids are so expensive is BECAUSE of government interference in the laws. If anyone could make and sell them, you would see all kinds of cheap and fancy models, like you do for cell phones.
Your article is disappointing.
:: The opponents to the bill are the doctors and the manufacturers of the expensive aids ::
Not to mention - ACA’s strangulation on “prosthetic device development”.
oops I think I misread- the article SEEMS TO BE about de-regulating
(PS not you Kaslin, the author)
Let me correct your misspelling:
Lobbyists have Million$ of reasons
“.......The opponents to the bill are the doctors and the manufacturers of the expensive aids.’......
Called “lobbiests”, the ones who give the politicians the kickbacks for their votes. Explains why hearing aids cost so damn much. (I’d bet the “bill” fails to get passed)
When I first started reading the article, I thought I had written it.
“.... Lobbyists have Millions of reasons”....
They’re called “DOLLARS” and come in BIG dominations and quantities.
You need a prescription to purchase a mask but not for mask parts. If you buy all the parts separately you can assemble the entire mask from the parts without a prescription.
I’ve been really blessed with my hearing aids. I’ve had 3 tiny in-the-ear aids that cost from $700-$1700 over time due to costs increases in the economy. They have served me well with only the one (should be two but can’t afford). The best part for me is the specialist who cleans and repairs it free of charge. He keeps me in batteries also. He’s an independent business man. He has the computer program where he can EQ the sound to suit my reception.
I don’t understand what they’re talking about - you can’t pick up a magazine without seeing ads for the non-prescription OTC hearing aids...or advertised on TV. My husband paid $5000 out of pocket for his hearing aids and now refuses to wear them. He has to use oxygen most of the time and the canula was interfering with the wire on the aid...so he gave up. I ordered two different sets of the kind advertised on TV and he promptly dropped and broke both sets.
I don’t know why Moore is on CNN - he’s better off not being able to hear the rest of the panel there. I like him a lot and figured he wasn’t hearing too well when I’ve watched them.
I think some sympathy is in order also for those of us who have to repeat everything 10 times a day...mighty stressful AND having to ask the hard of hearing repeatedly to wear the headset for TV instead of blasting everyone out of the house.
“There really is a little computer in there”
Most people have a smartphone that is a VERY powerful computer. Without government stopping the process there could be an app and Bluetooth earbuds that would solve this issue. More likely dozens of apps tailored to individual hearing issues.
A SADISTIC ENT cost me half my low frequency hearing, so I now wear twin hearing aids, and they are expensive even at the simple end model. $3,400 for the pair, and batteries are very expensive and they last less than 4 days, you can’t sleep in them, so that means NO Hearing at night for thugs trying to break into your home; the only thing Medicare/Tricare Life covers is the ear wax removal or the frequent ear infections the stupid things cause.
BTW DOGS LOVE TO EAT HEARING AIDS.
Hubby’s hearing loss is Flight Deck caused 20 yrs Navy, Ret. SCPO. His are covered under VA disability and cost $5K, better quality than we can afford for me. But they provide him batteries and ear wax traps. Dog has already chewed up 1 as they are the kind that you push out of your ear, and the least little pressure on the back of the ear does that and you don’t notice it’s gone easily.
Trying to watch TV with two divergent hearing losses is not easy.
For today’s news, only last 1 is posted! On the 18th History Channel will have a War on Drugs special that goes into the LSD and current crisis as a war on crime is a big profitable government funding business for cities. The current out cry over Opioid Abuse is a FAKE LSM invention along with our governments. Illegal drugs laced with Fenyatal real and stolen and fake. Along with other illegal drugs. Intractable pain disease patients are taking the brunt of the FAKE news and being treated like Junkies and are committing Suicide as they can’t deal with the level 10 or higher pain. Those stats are hidden in the OD stats as that is how they usually chose to end the pain. That rate is rising daily.
FDA Pulling Pain Medication Opana ER from Market, Is This the Beginning of the End for Chronic Pain Sufferers? (OTHER ARTICLES TO SEE)
http://nationalpainreport.com/fda-pulling-pain-medication-opana-er-from-market-is-this-the-beginning-of-the-end-for-chronic-pain-sufferers-8833817.html
The DEA’s Opium War with the Taliban
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/the-deas-opium-war-with-the-taliban
A Drugmaker Tries To Cash In On The Opioid Epidemic, One State Law At A Time
http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/06/12/523774660/a-drugmaker-tries-to-cash-in-on-the-opioid-epidemic-one-state-law-at-a-time
POSTED
Medicare Erroneously Paid Millions in Electronic Records Push, Audit Finds
https://www.wsj.com/articles/medicare-erroneously-paid-millions-in-electronic-records-push-audit-finds-1497240060
They use a computer to adjust mine up or down, I’m low Freq loss due to botched Inner Ear Perfusion by a SADISTIC SOB ENT. Nor do they solve all hearing problems, run water or be in another room, turn up the TV to much and you over drive them just like loud speakers do when in the grocery store, if you go to the movies, mall, shopping, you have to remove them or you’d go nuts trying to survive the over drive, and you can’t turn them down enough to compensate. Let the wax trap get to full and you don’t hear. That word Battery in you ear is a pain in the tush as it is to loud and you have 1 min to change the battery or less depending on brand of aid.
Considering the cost why not make them rechargeable?
Making beaucoup $$ trumps our stupidity for loosing our hearing in the first place.
Its really eye opening how some treat others with non visible handicaps. I know I need some, too.
I can put up with the consternation from strangers, HELL, I could spend the rest of my life in happy silence if I didnt have to listen to all the idiots in my life, but the family frustration is pushing me very hard.
Hackable hearing devices...
Need to have that done, and open source Linux based programming software...
If someone makes a generic interface and hearing device, then that takes the wind out of the big name mfg $ales/$ails.
I’m all for it; I am severely hearing impaired & sick & tired of having to shell out big bucks in order to hear at a level where someone would -need- hearing aids (best amplification I get with them is -45dB).
This is where its going. Smartphone controlled for attenuation of loud noises, amplification of specific noises, maybe even cancelling out tinitus a little. everything you need, just tweak the app a little.
How is your credit?
Problem with the OTC readers you buy in a drug store/Wal-Mart, they don’t go lower than 1.25 if you can find that one 1.50 is usually where they stop. I’m an in between .75, .50 is to weak, .75 is not quite enough. 1.00 is to much. And I need all 3 distances or I can’t drive or do ordinary things like read or thread a needle. In other words my world is a blur, had the lower tear ducts cauterized closed, Severe DRY EYE DISEASE not treatable any other way; and the Cornea doc will probably want the Left upper one partially closed when I see him on the 21st. Lidocaine is the worst numbing agent there is for me. Having a hypodermic needle stuck in your tear ducts is VERY PAINFUL. Plugs fall out. My computer screen is blown up half off the screen and I still see blurred letters. This has been a 3 year NIGHTMARE.
As a 70 year old former farm boy who spent hours on tractors without mufflers on a Minnesota farm, I wasted a lot of dollars (statute of limitations) on trying to sue my dad for unfair child labor practices when in my early 60s I lost most of my hearing in my right ear.
Not wanting to spend thousands of dollars after listening to other old folks talk about their problems with their expensive hearing aids, I searched Amazon for amplifiers that had very positive user comments. I settled on the product below ($250) and found it significantly helped me and it not only has a couple of amplification levels, it also allows you to set it for indoor gatherings such as restaurants where it helped with ambient noises.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ARSMVUW/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Be sure to tell them to take their own machines to the hospital if they need to go, they cannot be sterilized enough to prevent the spread of infectious diseases the last user had. Or MOLD.
Those adjustable Sleep Number beds they advertise that use air, form mold between the layers in humid areas plus they are slow to adjust. Use the Temperpedic brand. There is a Wall Hugger model, and with a dr script you get a percentage off as well if you are Military/Ret. Military if you push it. Sheets are CHEAPER on Amazon, so don’t buy the store’s ones, lower thread count. Got super soft ones on Amazon for $90 for a split King. His mattress is firm, mine is extra firm.
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