They are talking about medical insurance. And an iPhone is low end compared to the price of most speech devices. Not all people with ALS can afford to pay for the system that Stephen Hawking has (who has a variant of ALS).

Those diseases stated are completely different and much more debillitating than being deaf. Look up A.L.S. or Lou Gehrig's disease as it's commonly called and you will quickly understand why they need devices for communication and also why they can't pay for it themselves. It renders you completely debilitated. Your muscles no longer work. They need so many "devices" just to keep living that their families go bankrupt. Then they die. Educate yourself before you make an insensitive comparison. I have a cousin who is deaf as well and I would never compare that with either A.L.S. or Down's Sydrome. Devices like these can be their only means of communication for people that can't even hold a pen. And the device has to have the ability to put speech assistive software on it. These devices are so expensive and take so long to be approved by insurance companies that many ALS patients die before they receive them.

It's a little harder to get a diagnosis of Down's Syndrome or ALS/Lou Gehrig's.