Good thing — back in Oct. 2022, Biden Administration rolled forward with hearing aids for moderate loss without prescription.

[Multicolored Lemur]

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/lower-cost-us-hearing-aids-go-sale-monday-2022-10-17/

“ . . . lower-priced hearing aids including from Walgreens . . . Walmart . . . CVS . . . lower-cost hearing aids online Monday and in some stores in November [2022], the White House said. . . ”

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Yes, I’d say this was a good thing.

It puts power in the hands of individual consumers.

If you want to see an audiologist, you’re free to go that route. But if you want to wing it and try to save some money, you’re free to go that route, too.

And it’s kind of up to audiologists to sell the value of their profession. And also to build the value.

 

[Multicolored Lemur]

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/lower-cost-us-hearing-aids-go-sale-monday-2022-10-17/

“ . . . In 2017, Congress passed legislation requiring the FDA to create a category of over-the-counter hearing aids, but it was not fully implemented. In June 2021, President Joe Biden signed a broad competition executive order that instructed the Health and Human Services Department to ‘promote the wide availability of low-cost hearing aids.’ . . . ”

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This one is kind of the opposite of the salary threshold, which was favored by both Obama and Trump, but pulled off by Trump. [and Biden favors increasing the threshold.]

With prescription-free hearing aids, both Trump and Biden favor this, but Biden pulled it off.