MS. PSAKI: Hi, everyone. All right, a couple of items for all of you at the top. With the pandemic taking a toll on so many young people, today we released a comprehensive overview of actions in the administration that we’re taking to improve access and care for youth mental health and substance use conditions, including new resources to address youth mental health challenges.
These actions include:
Investing in direct service programs. The American Rescue Plan provided historic funding levels to expanded services that link children and youth to needed services in their communities. This includes efforts like the Pediatric Mental har- — Health Care Ac- — Access program and expanding Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics.
Increasing school-based behavioral health supports through relief funding to help schools hire school psychologists, counselors, social workers, and other health professionals to address the mental health needs of students.
The Department of Education also released this morning the most comprehensive resource on mental health it has ever published, with real-world examples and strategies for how schools can address these needs.
HHS and MTV have also just announced that they’ll be hosting a youth mental health forum early next year, which will engage young people directly in identifying solutions to drive mental health action.
This is just the beginning of our efforts.
Also, today — the President’s executive order on competition called for improving the affordability and accessibility of hearing aids, and today the FDA took the next important step towards making them available over the counter at pharmacies and other regular retail stores without needing a prescription, a medical exam, or a fitting.
Building on bipartisan legislation led by Secretary Grassley and Senator — Senator Grassley — sorry — and Senator Warren, the rules issued today will help millions of Americans with mild to moderate hearing loss get cheaper and more convenient access to hearing aids.
About 37.5 million American adults have trouble hearing, but just one fifth of them use hearing aids, in part because they’re so expensive and inconvenient to get.
The goal is to cut the red tape and allow more companies to compete to sell hearing aids. We’re hopeful that the rules will be finalized next year. And with increased competition, expect hearing aids to cost hundreds instead of thousands of dollars.
Finally, just wanted to give you a brief preview of the President’s trip tomorrow. Tomorrow he’s traveling to his hometown — or one of his hometowns, I guess — of Scranton, Pennsylvania, to highlight the need for his Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal and Build Back Better Agenda.
He will talk about growing up in Scranton and the way his experience there influenced his values, and his belief that we need an economy that works for working people, like those in Scranton, instead of the wealthiest Americans on Wall Street.
The President will e