Hearing Aids & Coffins

[Running Arrow Bill]

Well...spiked your curiosity...no?

Anyhoo... my humble opinion of Hearing Aid products & sellers and funeral homes is that both play on the "disabilities" of the disabled and grieved...

In my 15 or so years work in past life in psychiatric, human service, MHMR, & related facilities it that ANYTHING that has to do with products designed for the disabled, incapacitated, or incompetent will cost 10X what they should.

Now my point:

In '98 I had a brain tumor removed which had destroyed my right auditory nerve & inner ear components: no hearing or balance ability on right side. In about 2001 I "needed" a hearing aid for my left ear that was at about 75% efficiency. The upside is that my hearing improved about 25% at most for around $2500. The downside is that those aids are not what they are represented to be in terms of "helping" you a lot.

Last week, I took my "completely in the ear" aid out while driving. Put it in my center console. Shut the lid. Crunch! Trashed out a $2500 piece of deception. When I got home, I looked inside the cracked case: One micro-sized receiver/transmitter, one micro-sized processing unit, one micro-sized loudspeaker, couple inches of micro-sized wires. NOW, for the "current" going rate of these gadgets (about $3,000 to 5,000 per ear for the high-tech varieties), I could buy a desktop computer with the capability of running the business of a small town...

Now, in all probability those hearing aids are made in China, Taiwan, Singapore, or some place like that and the USA companies probably pay less than $250 for each (my guess), and then between the excessive mark-up by the USA company and the snakeoil Hearing Aid Clinics, you end up with a $2500 to $5000 unit that at best (IMO) 25% efficient.

What is America coming to with "health" items???

On the flip side, my dad's funeral expenses for mortician's services, casket, concrete vault (mother wanted) were about $10,000 in 1978. All of these "containers" probably delayed "dust to dust" issues with my father for probably couple of years at most? To all this you add cemetary plot, marker, etc.

I plan to be cremated and cheat the funeral homes out of a lot of their expensive equipment...lol.

Finally, I think I'll start learn "American Sign" -- should be cheaper and more efficient than another seriously overpriced microchip inside a portable plastic case.

:x :shock:

 

[madbeancounter1]

Bill - I share your chagrin...

I started losing my hearing while in high school. By the time (1985) my loss reached a level that I could no longer hear efficiently my first hearing aid model cost $900 +/-(and it analog not digital). Insurance wouldn't pay so we could only afford one. My wife wanted me to be able to hear the cute baby noises our oldest daughter was making so she took a second job to pay for it... what a woman!

That first aid lasted about 8 years until the mfr refused to service it anymore.

I got the latest set this past winter and I am still paying for them. Estimated life span is 6-8 years

You are right about advantages and disadvantages. In the first 90 days I had this set I was into the audiologist 3-4 times to have them hooked up to the computer to adjust levels and frequencies... I need to go back in for another round of adjustments.

They are great for amplifying sound in a relatively quiet setting but put me in a restaurant or a store and I might as well not have them in. Wife says I look like a deer in the headlights.

By the way that same $900 model (update from analog to digital) now costs $2300

Hear is my list of gripes besides the ones you already mentioned...the top 5 anyway...

1. Batteries only last 7-9 days... Avg cost $.13 - .16 per day per aid to operate.
2. I'll be replacing my current set in another 6-8 years.
3. People who mumble or people who over-exagerate when speaking ... they're equally annoying.
4. People who don't look at you when they are speaking.
5. People who act annoyed when you ask them to look at you when speaking or to repeat themselves.

During the week of the fourth we made a trip up to Branson for a couple of days. If possible I experienced the best and the worst service in the same restaurant in a span of 5 minutes. The hostess seated us and began reciting the list of specials ... I couldn't see her speak so I adjusted my angle, which she picked up on and said, "Oh, I'm sorry. You didn't hear what I said"... and repeated herself in my direction. A few minutes later the waiter appeared and even when I asked him to repeat himself so that I could see what he said he mumbled and I couldn't understand it. Needless to say he didn't get a tip.

Maybe the AG's of all 50 states need to sue Hearing Aid dispensers the way they did 4 of the major drug companies. I saw on the news the other day where about 1200 Arkansans are going to get about $350 each as their part of the settlement. The suit claimed that the drug companies artificially inflated the price of blood pressure medicine.

Just my 2 cents worth

 

[Medic24]

Well, am very sorry t osee that you broke your hearing aid the RAB, they do sell cheapies around in mags and tv I think, just a few bucks, your probably right, they would likely work just as well, or close enuff.........
as far as funerals go... we too have it planned to cheat the cheaters,, that is the funeral directors don't need the money my family could use... thus I am going to be buried withing 24 hours, sans box or vault, literally dust to dust so to speak.. as long as it stays legal around here, thats the plan..

The Mrs. is gonna get a bit more spiffy with a cremation and can't decide where to throw the ashes, either the top of the mountain here or ship em back home to Australia...me I say dump em in the creek out front........ so far cremation is how much? less then $800 bucks?

I wouldn't care if ya just tossed me out in the middle of the pasture.......but those danged ol yotes would feast on me then... and that would certainly hurt my feelings if I knew that.

On a related matter , had a Llama croak out the other day........suspect she died of TMB ( to many birthdays) anyways... she play where I could not bury her or even toss anything over her,, to many boulders around......she lasted about 4 days till bones were left... maggots were like a living wave of white was the very best way to describe that.... gross but interesting........ was gonna burn her, but a deer had gotten caught in the fence just a few yards away and was smelling up my nieghbors place pretty awfull..........so I figured, a bit more stink would hardly be noticed..........lol and so it lay.....will go back in a week or so and shovel everything into a pile and burn or something, lime the areas where they lay and that should be that......... :cboy:

 

[MrBilly]

On the lighter side, just think that cremation will ultimately help improve the soil. I will be spread on the pasture.

This constipted guy placed a suppository in his rectum and had a great BM; an hour or so later he put his hearing aid in his right ear. It didn't work; he took it out and too his great surprise, and consternation, it was not a hearing aid by the suppository :lol: He too felt very poorly after that; but ghee he had a breat BM. Think on the bright side.

Billy

 

[Medic24]

Oh MY MrBilly!


Well, I almost got away with it...... but I got a phone call shortly after I posted the above message concerning the dead deer and dead Llama, the seasonal neighbors finally showed up, and when they called and begged my to come up to their house and help investigate that terrible smell, of course I knew what it was.I could not help but to snicker , even as I had to take my backhoe across their front lawn, cut my own fences, so that I could get into the pasture and bury the miscreants........Gees, if they had only waited a few more days till they showed up, it would have been all gone by then.
It did turn into an all day job anyways.... although the actual burial was over in ten minutes..........while reparing the fence I cut, they asked if I would take the extra time and effort to replace the several hundred feet of fence that bordered their land.......ok fine..... then they asked (actually insisted) that I remove several trees that were leaning over their property, as they were afraid a huge gust of wind would blow the trees over onto the little tool sheds., so,,, after winching and cutting several trees away from there, I had no choice but to replace the fence as it was now in a shambles anyway from dropping trees on it... and so it goes..............hoping it's a long time before I get another call from that house. :x :x :x :cboy: