From Scripps News, Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

Dan K. Thomasson, former editor of the Scripps Howard News Service, questions whether people with disabilities will actually benefit from the cost required to upgrade the American with Disabilities Act. He notes that accommodations are costly and often remain unused by those whom they are supposed to benefit.

For the life of me, I can’t understand how those benefits can be measured monetarily. Yes, no one is really willing to risk the wrath of the ADA lobby to do much arguing against this or to say that economically the requirements sometimes don’t seem to make much sense when considering the lack of utilization of current improvements or most likely of future enhancements mandated under the new proposals.

Take one that would require witness stands in courtrooms to be outfitted with lifts or some other way of making them wheelchair-friendly. Most times courts have placed wheelchair-bound witnesses in a position where they can be heard by the jury, the lawyers, and the judge. There is no cost or loss of dignity in this. There are a variety of other new requirements that seem to skate along the edge of common sense and, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, are threatening to even the most well -intentioned small businesses because of their complexities.

Americans are generous people and probably won’t complain much, at least not out loud to large groups.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 15th, 2008 at 5:47 am and is filed under ADA, accessibility, disabilities, law, politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.  Email This Post