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Hearing aids, a necessity or a luxury? It depends on who you ask.

Folks who need them say they're as important as prescription glasses. Health insurance companies disagree calling them a cosmetic expense. Most people have to pay for hearing aids themselves. Illinois lawmakers are trying to pass bills requiring insurance companies to help clients pay for hearing aids. So far, they haven't been successful.

Here in South Carolina, the hearing impaired have the same concerns. There are more than 30 million Americans who have some type of hearing problem. Doctors say one out of every 400 babies is born with limited hearing and insurance won't cover procedures to improve their condition.

One Midlands family tackled the problem head on. When they found out their baby boy couldn't hear, they started looking into different treatment options and they found one.

Listening to their son play the violin is something Brian and April Williams never take for granted. When 10-year-old Benjamin was born doctors said he was deaf. He had a deformed ear, it was partially formed with a completely closed canal. His other ear has a very small canal.

Benjamin first had surgery to improve his condition when he was just 3 years old. Overall, he had 10 surgeries in six years, eventually getting a "bone anchored hearing aid," or BAHA,  and correcting his deformed ear.

"He was the youngest recipient of the BAHA," says Benjamin's father, Brian.

Frank Hill is Benjamin's Columbia-based doctor. He says the BAHA requires a tiny piece of metal be put into the skull. Then a sound processor transmits vibrations through the bone and inner ear to stimulate nerves, allowing Benjamin to hear. It's not a very common procedure.

"Ten to 15 done per year here in this state," says Dr. Hill.

Brian says, "When he [Benjamin] first got it, he couldn't believe what he could hear." Neither could April and Brian. Their son, born with severe hearing loss, loves music and now excels in it.

"It's amazing we have a deaf child that sings totally on pitch. If Benjamin didn't have the BAHA, he couldn't hear and couldn't go to normal school," says April.

"All I can do is thank the Lord for it. He was doing things and hearing things he wasn't supposed to hear. We call this a miracle," says Brian.