Over-the-Counter Hearing Aids

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Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I hear from Iowans all the time about the high cost of hearing aids. The $5,000 or $6,000 or even $10,000 costs are often shocking for seniors who are on fixed incomes.

Thirty-eight million Americans, and, obviously, most of the time adults, have hearing loss. Hearing loss makes it harder to work, harder to socialize, and then easier to become isolated.

In 2016, I began a bipartisan effort with Democratic Senator Warren of Massachusetts to allow consumers to purchase over-the-counter hearing aids. If you can buy nonprescription reading glasses over the counter, it makes very good sense that you should be able to buy basic, safe hearing aids as well.

When Senator Warren and I began our efforts, our goal was simple: By making more products more easily available to consumers, this competition will increase and then lead to lower costs.

Despite every special interest, we passed in 2017 a bill that is entitled the ``Over-the-Counter Hearing Aid Act.'' Last week, the FDA, just now, released proposed regulations for over-the-counter hearing aids. This is very welcomed news, but it took the FDA bureaucracy more than 3 years to draft regulations.

Senator Warren and I pressed both the Trump administration and now the Biden administration to take action, get these regulations out so we can get these over-the-counter hearing aids on the market. I am glad that the FDA finally did its job.

Now the same Iowans who told me about the high cost of hearing aids can comment on the draft regulations. So everybody who wants to make such comments has until January 18 of next year to make comments on the draft regulations.

As long as the FDA bureaucracy acts--and I hope they will be listening--I expect Iowans can purchase over-the-counter hearing aids sometime in early 2022.

This is good news for Iowans and for Americans, generally.

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