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More than 30 million Americans experience significant hearing loss, but only a third of them gets hearing aids.

There are a lot of reasons why someone who needs a hearing aid won't get one: Some think their hearing loss is not that bad, others are too embarrassed to use them, and many people say they are just not worth the price.

A hearing aid costs an average of $1,500 per year for a basic model, and unlike most technology, their price has not dropped over time.

What is worse, most insurance companies do not pay for the devices. Even Medicare does not cover hearing aids — and the Affordable Care Act will not change that.

Some businesses see the hearing aid market as an opportunity. Costco has opened hearing aid centers in discount warehouses all over the country. Other companies have started selling their own brands of the devices directly online.

Ross Porter, the founder of online retailer Embrace Hearing, says that hearing aids are only expensive because audiologists and distributors charge steep markups on them.

But Virginia Ramachandran, an audiologist with the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, says it is unwise to buy a hearing aid for the first time online. She says the device might be fine, but you will not know how to use it correctly.

"If someone gave you a laptop computer, and you have never used one before, you would not know how to turn it on, you would not know what programs or how to use them," she says.

Shots - Health News

Listen Up To Smarter, Smaller Hearing Aids

In his national security speech Thursday, President Obama discussed drone warfare and the Guantanamo detention camp. But a third controversial issue went largely unmentioned: the use of interrogation methods that are tantamount to torture.

Obama banned those interrogation techniques on his second day in office. But he has largely avoided the debate over whether torture in some cases has produced valuable information. He may soon find himself caught between Senate Democrats and the CIA, however.

A Senate committee report approved last December essentially concluded that the CIA's enhanced interrogation program was a disaster. The CIA is preparing a response, which is expected to challenge some of the report's assertions.

Did It Work?

It's been years since a suspected terrorist faced waterboarding. But the debate over past practices continues, thanks in part to the Senate Intelligence Committee. Investigators from that committee spent six years poring over millions of CIA documents relating to agency interrogations of suspected al-Qaida members.

The committees' findings resulted in a report that's 6,000 pages long — and scathing.

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The European Union plans to end its embargo on arming the Syrian opposition, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Monday.

The Associated Press reports: "Hague insisted that Britain had 'no immediate plans to send arms to Syria. It gives us flexibility to respond in the future if the situation continues to deteriorate.' "

The EU will continue its sanctions against Bashar Assad's government, which had been set to expire on June 1, Hague said.

"The decision came after lengthy talks in Brussels," the BBC reports. "Britain and France had been pressing to send weapons to what they call moderate opponents of President Assad. But other countries had opposed the move, saying it would only worsen the violence."

As we reported earlier, U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who supports arming the Syrian opposition, met with rebels on Monday after crossing into the country from Turkey.

Arizona Sen. John McCain spent his Memorial Day in Syria. As NPR's Jonathan Blakley reports from Beirut, McCain's spokesman says the senator crossed into northern Syria from Turkey to meet with rebels in the country, ripped apart by the 2-year conflict turned civil war.

The Daily Beast reports McCain was with Brig. Gen. Salim Idris, the head of the Free Syrian Army, and met with rebels for a few hours before going back to Turkey. The Daily Beast added:

"Idris praised the McCain visit and criticized the Obama administration's Syria policy in an exclusive interview Monday with The Daily Beast. 'The visit of Senator McCain to Syria is very important and very useful especially at this time,' he said. 'We need American help to have change on the ground; we are now in a very critical situation.' "