According to the National Center for Health Statistics, 48 million Americans have some degree of hearing loss, making it the third most common physical condition after arthritis and heart disease.
Rep. Jerry Newton (DFL-Coon Rapids) sponsors a bill that would provide some assistance to this significant community.
Under his bill, HF1921, televisions or other audiovisual displays in public places that are capable of captioning would be required to do so when providing information or entertainment to the public.
The bill would also require that whenever a public place acquired a new television, it would be required to get one with high-contrast captioning capability.
While Rep. Newton says HF1921 will benefit the deaf, deaf-blind, and hard of hearing community, he said everyone can benefit from this bill.
HF1921 is our Starting Line bill for this week. Watch it here.