Washington, DC—In response to news that Apple’s next generation AirPods will feature hearing aid capabilities—a direct result of Biden-Harris Administration rules allowing over-the-counter sales of hearing aids—the American Economic Liberties Project released the following statement.

“Thanks to the Biden-Harris competition agenda, a crucial medical technology has gone from being guarded by a cartel, to being integrated into one of the most popular consumer electronics in the country,” said Matt Stoller, Director of Research at the American Economic Liberties Project. “Millions of Americans have hearing loss, but for years a manufacturing cartel prevented them from being sold over the counter. That changed after President Biden’s 2021 executive order on competition, providing liberty to patients and independent audiologists. Today’s announcement by Apple will continue driving this competition: a textbook example of how competition policy can create entirely new markets and spur innovation.”

Two thirds of people over the age of 70 experience some form of hearing loss, which can lead to serious diseases like dementia. But as of 2016, only 20% of people who had hearing loss actually used hearing aids, due to prohibitively high prices maintained by a cartel. Meanwhile, independent audiologists paid far more for the devices as major corporate audiologists that cooperated with the cartel, such as Costco.

In 2017, following decades of advocacy from public interest groups, Congress acted, passing Elizabeth Warren and Chuck Grassley’s Over-the-Counter Hearing Aid Act, which ordered the FDA to create rules allowing the sale of hearing aids without a prescription. The FDA, however, did not follow through on its mandate until 2021, when the Biden Administration EO on competition explicitly pressured the agency. Since then, the price of hearing aids has dropped by as much as $3,000 per pair.

Learn more about Economic Liberties here.

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The American Economic Liberties Project works to ensure America’s system of commerce is structured to advance, rather than undermine, economic liberty, fair commerce, and a secure, inclusive democracy. Economic Liberties believes true economic liberty means entrepreneurs and businesses large and small succeed on the merits of their ideas and hard work; commerce empowers consumers, workers, farmers, and engineers instead of subjecting them to discrimination and abuse from financiers and monopolists; foreign trade arrangements support domestic security and democracy; and wealth is broadly distributed to support equitable political power.