And as bad as prescriptions, somehow medical devices are even more absurd. Only semi-recently did hearing aids become OTC accessible and prices dropped by 40%+ overnight. If you're on a CPAP, via a medical equipment supplier you'll pay more AFTER insurance's share than you would be paying cash online (and they're half even the online price aboard for identical hardware).
One problem the US has is that prescription stuff is held to a higher standard, but in most other countries the standards for medical stuff and how patients get those things are unrelated. So you could OTC something without lowering the legal standards for quality or testing. The US needs to fix that, keep the standards, but OTC by default unless it can be argued why not.
The even better part is the "higher end" machines that do like, BiPAP, are just firmware flashed revisions of the lower end CPAP/APAP machines with some extra medical approvals on it.
(Learned this one tinkering on the Airbreak CPAP project.)
Standard disclaimers apply, I'm not responsible for people bricking their CPAPs or other life support equipment with this information, you live your own life the way you choose. Please don't screw around with a "live" machine hooked to a patient cough.
I was trying to see what the differences were between the lowest-end "start" CPAP and the highest end - while the firmware would flash over, the menu controls wouldn't work due to the changes made on the low end model - but the therapy start/stop did work (and it was delivering the correct therapy I programmed in via SD card with the clinician software).
One problem the US has is that prescription stuff is held to a higher standard, but in most other countries the standards for medical stuff and how patients get those things are unrelated. So you could OTC something without lowering the legal standards for quality or testing. The US needs to fix that, keep the standards, but OTC by default unless it can be argued why not.