Given the seeming impossibility of big fixes for the triad of U.S. health-care problems—lack of universal access, exorbitant costs, and uneven quality—there have been many attempts to address more narrowly focused issues.
One attempted small fix is the Over-the-Counter Hearing Aid Act of 2017 that was introduced on March 21 by Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Maggie Hassan (D-NH), and Johnny Isakson (R-GA). This bill, which was reported out of the Senate Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee on May 11—together with a companion measure introduced in the House by Reps. Joe Kennedy III (D-MA) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN)—has the admirable intent of expanding access to hearing aids for some of the 37.5 million Americans with varying degrees of hearing loss. The bill would for the first time create an over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aid category, allowing the devices to be sold directly to the customer like cheap drug-store eyeglasses.
