Apple announced a trio of major new hearing health features for the AirPods Pro 2 in September, including clinical-grade hearing aid functionality, a hearing test, and more robust hearing protection. All three will roll out next week with the release of iOS 18.1, and they could mark a watershed moment for hearing health awareness. Apple is about to instantly turn the world’s most popular earbuds into an over-the-counter hearing aid.
↫ Chris Welch at The Verge
Rightfully so, most of us here have a lot of issues with the major technology companies and the way they do business, but every now and then, even they accidentally stumble into doing something good for the world. AirPods are already a success story, and gaining access to hearing aid-level features at their price point is an absolute game changer for a lot of people with hearing issues – and for a lot of people who don’t even yet know they have hearing issues in the first place.
If you have people in your life with hearing issues, or whom you suspect may have hearing issues, gifting them AirPods this Christmas season may just be a perfect gift. Yes, I too think hearing aids should be a thing nobody has to pay for and which should just be part of your country’s universal healthcare coverage – assuming you have such a thing – but this is not a bad option as a replacement.
Unfortunately these are always buds style. Bud style headphones never fit well and always fall out of my ears. IEMs with flange tips are the only thing that stay in my ears the way I want. Wish someone would develop these extra tech toys for that style. I’m sure it won’t happen.
Etymotic electronic earplugs?
So those are all just hearing protection, which is great and all, but I can’t use it to listen to music/whatever like you can with the AirPods. It’s that it’s combined functionality, in a form factor that doesn’t work for me for physical/fit/feel.
I think the model used in scandinavia is better where you can get real hearing aids that is calibred and custom fitted to suit your hearing impariment through the single payer health system.
How about countries without Scandinavian health system?
Perhaps they should consider the model, at least for hearing aids. It is a cheap sollution to get the hearing impaired to be more productive and have a higher quality of life. On that particular issue it is a net boon to the economy. Maybe the system as a whole is not as great, but for hearing aids i think it makes sense. I would probably argue the same line when one consider prostetic dentures based on the same merits as well as other prostetics like limbs. The initial cost absolutely provides a lot more value over time than one might think, both in terms of economics and quality of life, which in turn lesses the need for more health care.
It’s kind of astonishing to me how normalised attacking the US is in Europe. They’ve released a great technological aid for people with disabilities, and Europeans just can’t help themselves with the casual disdain for how American society is organised. Nothing like that exists in reverse, and that’s certainly not because Europe is without problems.
Despite what argumentative fifteen year olds argue about on Reddit, the healthcare model in most of Europe (outside the UK and the Nordics) is practically identical to that of the United States. Health cover is paid by a person’s employer, unless a person is self-employed (in which case they must pay their own insurance in Europe, and in America they have the choice to), or unemployed/economically-deprived (in which case they are eligible for government benefits).
Scaled to income, European health insurance is not significantly cheaper than US healthcare, except that Europe maintains a general pretense that its paid-for mandatory health insurance is somehow ‘free and public’. Europe also imposes a cruel system of financial and administrative penalties (sometimes even criminal penalties) on people without insurance, which disproportionately harms vulnerable people, the homeless, and itinerant minorities such as the Roma.
American healthcare is more expensive in absolute terms, yes, but America is *significantly* richer than Europe (in terms of GDP per capita, the biggest European economy, Germany, would rank as the 49th poorest US state, behind Alabama, West Virginia, Arkansas, etc. Almost every other European country would be dead last, some by a huge margin.). America offers comprehensive free healthcare to people in need (through programs like Medicaid and Medicare). It also offers a generally much higher level of quality of care than much of Europe, and things that are nearly impossible in large parts of Europe (like ‘finding a doctor’ and ‘getting an appointment’) are trivial in the US. I’ve not generally heard too many people with real, personal, first-hand experience of both systems actually find the European approach to be preferable. But then the average American doesn’t tend to end every missive with broadsides at friends and allies, that seems to be a peculiarly European affliction.
And before you attack me for being American, know that I’m not, I’m European. I just happen to have the experience of different healthcare systems around the world, and find the condescending attitude of most Europeans to American healthcare arrogant and ignorant.
AirPods as hearing aids is a fantastic piece of medical technology. Thanks, America!
Cal,
God I hope not. Here in the US many families are one medical disaster from going bankrupt. Most don’t have to look far to find relatives or friends who are partially but not adequately covered by employers. A relative who had childbirth complications at a hospital and came home with $10k medical bills. My spouse took the ambulance to the closest ER WITH GODDAMN INSURANCE but because the hospital providers were out of network they charged an additional $7k on top of the amount the insurance did cover. The in network hospital would have been completely covered but the ambulance doesn’t go there so if ever there’s another emergency we have to seriously contemplate not taking the ambulance for financial reasons. On top of $125/mo to buy into the employer sponsored insurance program, our family pays almost two grand in deductibles yearly. Some US residence find it more viable to cross the boarder and pay for procedures out of pocket given the chance rather than rely on US insurance & providers. I am clueless about what healthcare is like in the EU, but Fuck the US health insurance system. Seriously this isn’t the answer. YMMV.
How do you know they were thalking about the US and not the parts of europe that lacks help with prostetics/hearing aids that you yourself mentioned? Some americans think every comment in the world is about them.
The central feature of US healthcare is that it is tied entirely to employment ( at least before age 65). No employer, no healthcare. And by “no healthcare”, I mean that the hospital may very well send you home even if they know you may die.
Many countries, including mine, have “extended” benefits provided by employer plans but essential services are tied to simple residency. Nobody is being turned away from hospitals. You do not have to pay to have a baby in a hospital just because you have no employer. You do not have to pay to have heart surgery when you have a heart attack. If you have cancer, we will try to save you–even if you have no job.
I am no expert but I think the US is actually quite unique in this regard at least in terms of “developed” economies. What European countries do not have some form of universal health care? According to Wikipedia, the French government covers 77% of the cost of healthcare and 100% for “low-income” citizens. They have a lower infant mortality than either the UK or Sweden ( your examples ) and less than half of that of the United States ( by far the highest – wonder why ).
The situation seems overall quite similar in the other European countries I looked at. Germany covers all costs which are “medically necessary”. Access to healthcare is in the Polish constitution. Spanish healthcare is free to the unemployed. Italian healthcare looks heavily subsidized. Which countries should I be looking at to understand your point?
It is not the same thing to say that employers offer improved healthcare and cover some of the costs as it is to say that your access to healthcare is entirely tied to your employment or to VERY expensive private insurance ( as it is in the US ). Also, the fact that employed people pay tax for healthcare is not the same thing as employer funded insurance.
In almost any developed country I can think of, a pregnant woman can visit a hospital to give birth without economic consequence. In the United States, having a baby can bankrupt an uninsured and / or unemployed family. Before the Affordable Care Act ( Obama ), pregnancy was considered a “pre-existing condition” which would actually make you uninsurable. You are a young healthy business person without insurance and then get diagnosed with a disease requiring expensive treatment? You may not even be allowed to buy insurance at all and the government will not help you. Medical bankruptcies are not theoretical in the USA.
Even insured Americans can effectively be without insurance and totally on the hook for expensive medical bills surprisingly often. Look up what “out-of-network” means in the US. Need to consult a specialist? Better hope they have a deal with your employers healthcare package. Get hit by a car while out of town? You may be in for a tens-of-thousands-of-dollars level surprise.
Whatever your politics, the US system seems very, very different to me.
tanishaj,
We’ve been focusing on the financial side of US healthcare, but we should note that there are other problems besides this… here in the US your employer gets to chose your plan and it’s coverage. Things like dental and vision may not be covered.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/05/04/1095589987/ivf-insurance-bills
US laws provide workers comp in the case of injuries sustained on the job, but even that can be denied if employers decide you don’t need medical service. Employees may need to lawyer up and go to court to get treatment (naturally,). Worker comp laws also entitle the employer to choose where you go, who you see, and can even assign their own nurse case manager to tag along representing the employer’s interests in your care.
https://joelbieber.com/workers-compensation/can-i-see-my-own-doctor-while-on-workers-compensation/
Alfman,
The US Federal government has been feeding this beast for decades.
It started when they put caps on employee compensation. (Which itself was a terrible idea). And companies naturally started offering non-monetary compensation, including health insurance. (It could have been free candy, or massages, but this happened).
Over time it grew like a cancer. Since employment meant you had health insurance, like any fallacy, they assumed not having employment meant you are automatically unhealthy enough to work. Hence, people have difficulty buying individual plans.
And of course the infamous “affordable care act”. While being necessary, and solving some long standing issues (like insurance dropping you after you get a long term disease), they basically let insurance companies write it.
My premiums have shot up after that, and increasing every year, for ever so diminishing coverage.
Our healthcare “industry” has grown to about 17.3% of our GDP. That is an absurd amount for the value we get in return.
As long as big pharma has senators in their pocket, I don’t see a simple solution. They will only work on “who pays”, in other words finding even more money to throw at them.
(And, no we are not a “free” market either. Try ordering perfectly fine medicine from Canada or Mexico, and see how fast they shut you down).
Again, sorry for the rant…
sukru,
This is true of health care, but it also turns out to be the problem with a lot of other government programs too. Take education, the rising costs has reached a level of insanity to the point where it creates burdens. This is what all private businesses aim to do thanks to profit incentives. The government rightfully recognizes the staggering costs are a serious problem for typical families, but when their policies only address “who pays” without fixing the sources of bloat, it just leaves educational institutions free to rip off taxpayers. It’s a different type of burden, less personal but a burden nevertheless.
This is why it’s not enough for the government to come in and throw money at problems, it incentivizes and justifies higher prices. Housing is another major problem these days. You can’t just help make housing more affordable for families by helping them pay, this can have the opposite effect.
Here’s a bad sketch that explains it fairly well.
“A secret meeting to raise the rent”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FJ33I04E6Q
You’re right, that would bring down medicine prices pretty quickly. The US is politically undergoing an anti-globalization shift…most economists agree that tariffs and other trade barriers lead to higher prices and doesn’t particularly incentivize domestic companies to become competitive with foreign counterparts. On top of this, we can expect more tariffs on our exported goods as retribution. So while it’s easy to create trade barriers on foreign goods, doing so won’t really make domestic companies address the inefficiencies that caused them to be noncompetitive in the first place.