Still Looking for those Golden Years: Glasses, Water, and Hearing Aids

What do glasses, water, and hearing aids have in common? Well, you would have to be pushing your Golden Years to discover the commonality. The common issue is the cost of the items versus their selling price. Each of these three items has a ridiculously low cost and a comparatively high selling price. In addition, if you are hearing and sight challenged and need to bathe or drink water, all three of these items could be classified as necessities.

Since I have all three of these challenges, I have become interested in researching these three commonly used products. Not too long ago following a visit to my local ophthalmologist for an eye exam and the results showed I need new glasses. Since I wear regular variable vision glasses, sunglasses, and computer glasses, the total spent came to a tidy sum even when the purchase made a Costco Warehouse. We have tried online glasses and not been happy with the results. The price was within the range of what I expected since I have been wearing glasses since grade school.

Now we come to the research. It turns out that a $500 pair of glasses probably costs less than $20 to make. See "You'll be Shocked to Find Out How Much Eyeglasses Really Cost."

Hmm. This seems like a major issue. Could it be true? Time to do some more research. Here is a list of links to articles discussing the real cost of eyeglasses.

• Why Do We Pay Hundreds for Shades that Cost $3 to Make?
• Why are glasses so expensive? The eyewear industry prefers to keep that blurry
• Sticker shock: Why are glasses so expensive?
• Meet the Four-Eyed, Eight-Tentacled Monopoly That is Making Your Glasses So Expensive

The list could go on indefinitely. So why did I pay hundreds of dollars for eyeglasses? Good question. 

Now what? Let's move on to hearing aids. The average cost of hearing aids makes high priced glasses look cheap. In looking around, it looks like the average price on one hearing aid is $2300 and of course, I have two ears. See "Is there a hearing aid price bubble?" Again, what is the actual cost of manufacturing these extraordinary electronic devices? Much less than $200. How many people go without hearing aids because of the artificially high price? In addition, I would have to have an ear test before anyone would sell me a pair. There go my Golden Years. What rankles me is that my latest hearing aids are about as dumb as a rock compared to my iPhone and I paid more than three times the cost of my iPhone for these wretched hearing aids that do not help much at all. 

What about water. Isn't that mostly pretty inexpensive? Well, actually yes unless you don't have it piped to your house or you decided to fill a swimming pool. But as we found out recently by carefully examining our water bill,  the part of the bill that applies to the sale of water is about 7%, the rest of the bill goes for taxes. I don't have a ready link for the cost of water. But if you are one of these people who buy cases of bottled water at your local supermarket, you are paying about 2000 times as much as it costs for tap water in most of the United States. See "Bottled Water Costs 2000 Times As Much As Tap Water." By the way, bottled water costs more than twice the cost of gasoline. 

Those of us who have a few years behind have been paying these prices for a long time.