When I went to the universities and battled through macro, statistics, and all those wonderful classes, I learned about SUPPLY and DEMAND. If there are enough people purchasing a product or services, the costs of these items go down. If not, they stay up. This applies to our precious hearing aids and assistive listening devices, etc. If the hearing loss public insists on denying and staying away from using these devices and instruments, they will always be very costly. That is why all of the manufacturers can charge what they want because their overhead or costs to make them will be high for the few that they make. If they had to make more - it would cost them less...just like Julie stated .... Think about that! We all lose unless we use our brains and get with the program...people.