Rep. Emanuel Staffer Tours Beltone Plant in Chicago

Mary Ann Levar, Rep. Rahm Emanuel's (D-IL) Deputy District Director, toured the Beltone manfuacturing facility on Victoria St. in Chicago where it has been in operation for 67 years. She was impressed by the skills demonstrated by the employees, most of whom are local residents, and with the fact that Beltone has maintained the plant at that location even though its headquarters were shifted to suburban Glenview.

As part of the visit, Beltone President Todd Murray and Marketing VP Barb VanSomeren presented a slide show that highlighted the history of Beltone at the facility, and Operations Manager Mark Heiser conducted a tour of the plant. After the tour, Chicago area resident Dick Meyer, a Past President of the Hearing Loss Assn. of America (formerly SHHH), and Melanie Harris, the mother of a girl with hearing loss and an active Chicago area member of A.G. Bell Assn. for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, joined loyal Beltone patients Evelyn and Harold Brown and Andy Bopp, HIA, to present an informal Hearing Health Forum to discuss issues related to the absence of assistance for the vast majority of people who need hearing aids and the importance of the hearing aid tax credit. Levar expressed great interest in the issue and in the legislation.

It is critical that legislators hear from their constituents on legislation such as the hearing aid tax credit. The Beltone tour provided an opportunity to demonstrate the importance of hearing health issues to local Chicago residents while also demonstrating that the facility provides skilled technical jobs that are important to the economy of that section of the city. Rep. Emanuel is a member of the House Ways and Means Committee which has jurisdiction over the hearing aid tax credit, and he is widely acknowledged to be the architect of the 2006 Democratic House takeover.

Bopp and other members of the coalition that is working to support the hearing aid tax credit met with Rep. Emanuel's health staffer in Washington after the tour as part of follow up efforts. For more information about the tour or the hearing aid tax credit, contact Andy Bopp, 703-684-5744.

HIA, headquartered in Alexandria, VA, is the national trade association of manufacturers of hearing aids, implantable hearing devices, assistive listening devices, component parts and power sources for amplification devices.