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By MATP Staff Member & MDRC Executive Director Norman G. DeLisle, Jr

In part one of this series, I explored the idea that as long as assistive technology remains specialized to the disability community, there will be issues of affordability and access.  Eye gaze is one example of a technology that has historically reflected this trend.

A second example lies in hearing aids. Despite the larger number of people who need these aids, they remain expensive and hard to finance. Modern digital hearing aids run anywhere from $2,000-$6,000 each. The FDA requires that even if an aid is never used, but only sold, it must be broken down and remade from scratch rather than being resold. Although digital aids can be reprogrammed locally, any repairs require that the device be sent back to the factory.

Imagine sending your Volkswagen to Germany to get it repaired.
Because banks don’t know what to do with your hearing aids if you default on a loan, you will pay the highest interest rate if you can get a loan at all.

It was for these reasons that MDRC and UCP Michigan created a loan fund with lower interest rates and easier terms. But easier access to funds does not reduce the cost of the device. And the cost of the device is mostly all the other things that must be in place in order to market medical devices., rather than the actual components of the device. After all, you can buy a car, a far more complex device than a hearing aid, for $6,000.

The lesson is that as long as support technologies remain focused on a small and specialized need of a very specific community, they will remain expensive and inaccessible to people who can’t get government to pay for them. This is a political, not a technological or economic problem. And, it points us toward a strategy for increasing access and reducing price -make support mainstream. For those support systems that can be tied to smartphones or tablets, they must be to make them usable. For devices that can’t be put on our phones or tablets, the rules for using them need to reflect the critical importance of access and cost.

As funding for health care is reduced in real dollars, and as rules for access become more and more ridiculous, people with a need for these supports will find themselves being forced into segregated programs for want of these obvious and clearly needed devices. Our advocacy can’t just be for more money. It has to always include the demand that cost be reduced and transparent access be expanded.

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