On Tuesday, the Food and Drug Administration finalized a rule to sell hearing aids over-the-counter, a move that President Joe Biden is touting as part of his administration's allegedly cost-cutting agenda that benefits consumers and creates competition in the marketplace. But there's some missing context to Biden's self-proclaimed win.
Tuesday's action implements the Over-the-Counter Hearing Aid Act, which was passed more than four years ago by Congress under an FDA reauthorization bill during the Trump administration in 2017 and signed by the 45th president himself. So, is Biden taking credit yet again for an accomplishment that is actually owed to Trump?
CLAIM: "In the executive order I issued last year to increase competition in key industries and lower costs, I called on the FDA to finally make hearing aids available over the counter," Biden said in a White House statement Tuesday. "Today, the FDA is doing just that," Biden proudly declared. He then claimed (in this inflation-ravaged economy) it "makes good on my commitment to lower costs for American families" by clearing the way to deliver almost $3,000 in potential savings to U.S. households seeking a cheaper pair of hearing aids.
Biden touted the maneuver as the latest his administration has taken to "make our economy more competitive and less concentrated," adding: "We're finally building an economy that works for working families."
Of course, the Democratic establishment's most loyal cheerleaders believe that Biden deserves kudos. Such praise came from the former head of an anti-Trump PAC, who also is the ex-national finance chair of Draft Biden 2016. He thanked Biden and stated that Tuesday's development came "[a]t President Biden's urging."
BREAKING: At President Biden’s urging, the FDA is finally making hearing aids available over the counter — a move that will save millions of American families up to $3,000.
— Jon Cooper (@joncoopertweets) August 16, 2022
Thank you, @POTUS!
FACTS: Last year, Biden did indeed push for a new category of in-store hearing devices that don't require an expensive medical exam or fitting from a specialist when he called on the Health and Human Services Department in his Promoting Competition in the American Economy executive order, dated July 2021, "to promote the wide availability of low-cost hearing aids, not later than 120 days after the date of this order, publish for notice and comment a proposed rule on over-the-counter hearing-aids." (The line was but a brief mention in a whirlwind of directives.) The FDA met the 120-day deadline and issued a proposal that October.
Flash forward to the fall of 2022, as early as mid-October, approximately tens of millions of Americans experiencing mild-to-moderate hearing loss will be able to easily purchase more affordable hearing aids that will soon be accessible without a prescription at local pharmacies and retailers across the country or online.
However, it was a YEARS-long effort stretching all the way back to Trump's time. X Strategies LLC's senior digital strategist Greg Price first pointed out how Biden failed to mention that the Over-the-Counter Hearing Aid Act was passed towards the beginning of Trump's tenure in 2017 and signed into law by Biden's predecessor.
Joe Biden today is taking credit for being able to buy hearing aids over the counter.
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) August 16, 2022
He fails to mention how the Over-the-Counter Hearing Aid Act that allowed for this to happen was passed in 2017 and signed into law by President Donald J. Trump.
Thanks President Trump! pic.twitter.com/JLNfzcd8WH
Before this week's fulfillment of the long-term objective, the federal regulatory agency was instructed back then to craft a plan. The text from H.R. 2430, the FDA Reauthorization Act of 2017, stipulates that the FDA "must categorize certain hearing aids as over-the-counter hearing aids" and "must update and finalize its draft guidance on hearing products." Biden's summertime executive order even cited Section 709 of the act passed under Trump.
The regulation has also been awaited with much anticipation by medical experts and consumer advocates, who have helped to prod it along, too. A report released by the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine proposed such a feat as far back as 2016. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), who co-sponsored the initial bipartisan legislation, said in a Q&A that both he and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) have been "riding herd on the FDA under both the Trump and Biden administrations to get off the dime and write the rules."
RATING: The claim that Biden is patting himself on the back and taking credit for a Trump-era accomplishment is MOSTLY TRUE. Biden did renew pressure on the FDA to act but he didn't single-handedly carry the baton up to and across the finish line. It was a culmination of work by many hands, including Trump's that held the presidential signing pen.
So, the FDA did not move to implement the program until now. Trump signed it. Biden urged its implementation. Teamwork makes the dream work, I guess. We'll throw Biden a bone here. Still, he didn't give credit where it's due, all while returning from a lavish vacation to hurt struggling middle-class Americans with the falsely named "Inflation Reduction Act." When everything is A-okay and it's nothing but sunshine and rainbows, Biden is quick to claim ownership. (*Cue the maniacal laughter* "Just as I planned!") But if anything goes awry in Biden's America, he'll play the blame game, pinning Trump for his mishaps and even a foreign adversary for domestic woes e.g. "Putin's price hike."
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