From the Wall Street Journal (registration required):

The U.S. is moving on two fronts this week to expand businesses’ obligations to accommodate disabled people, in a legislative and regulatory push that risks a backlash from millions of businesses worried about costs.

On Wednesday, two House committees will finish crafting a bill that broadens the population entitled to employment rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act, reversing Supreme Court decisions narrowing it. The bill could come to a vote before the July 4 recess, if lawmakers reach agreement. Also this week, the Bush administration will begin seeking public comment on 1,000 pages of proposed rules — covering issues from hotel-room doors to theater seating — clarifying existing regulations on physical access for disabled people.

The proposed regulations are expected to cost private and public establishments $22.8 billion, according to a Justice Department analysis …

… some advocates for disability rights are worried that the businesses affected will interpret the two-front push as the government piling on during economic hard times.

From the Associated Press in the Kansas City Star, the Kaiser Network:

The U.S. will spend an estimated $59 billion or more annually in 2033 to compensate disabled veterans, compared with $29 billion annually currently, according to internal Department of Veterans Affairs documents obtained by the Associated Press, the AP/Kansas City Star reports.

… The decline in the total number of veterans is attributed to older veterans from World War II and Korea dying. However, the total number of disabled veterans has increased 25% since 2001 to 2.9 million, compared with a 4% increase during the six-year period before the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan began, according to data from the VA and U.S. Census Bureau. Advances in medical care are helping injured veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars stay alive after “devastating injuries” that likely would have killed veterans from earlier wars, according to the AP/Star.

From the New York Times:

A retirement community affiliated with Dartmouth Medical School in New Hampshire has become a laboratory for the ’slow medicine’ movement, allowing patients to put on the brakes when considering care that may have high risks and limited rewards for elderly people.

… it educates patients and families how to push back against emergency room trips and hospitalizations designed for those with treatable illnesses, not the inevitable erosion of advanced age.

Slow medicine, which shares with hospice care the goal of comfort rather than cure, is increasingly available in nursing homes, but for those living at home or in assisted living, a medical scare usually prompts a call to 911, with little opportunity to choose otherwise.

The movement is not without controversy.

Many in their 80s and 90s — and their boomer children — want to pull out all the stops to stay alive, and doctors get paid for doing a procedure, not discussing whether it should be done. The costliest patients — the elderly with chronic illnesses — are the only group with universal health coverage under Medicare, leading to huge federal expenditures that experts agree are unsustainable as boomers age.

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From the Boston Globe:

Asians make up 9 percent of students in Boston schools, but only 3 percent of those enrolled in special education, a disparity that has led to fears that many are not getting the help they need.

Even parents with children in special-education programs face cultural and language barriers to getting proper attention for students. Many families are hesitant to ask for help because of a cultural stigma of having children with disabilities. Some are reluctant to challenge school authorities, and others simply don’t know where to turn.

… “Chinese people are a little ashamed to let others know they have a child with special needs at home,” said Zhong Ruan, who reaches out to Chinese families on behalf of the Federation for Children with Special Needs …

Schools are facing pressure to trim spending, but special education is one potentially costly area that can’t be cut, officials say.

From the Muncie, Indiana, Star-Press:

As public schools are charged with the task of educating all students who come through their doors, the cost to educate special education students continues to rise; more students are identified with special needs and more parents choose to keep their children in the local school system. Adhering to a student’s individualized education program also can add to the cost of special education, school officials say.

See earlier story today about rising special education costs: “Benny’s special education creates special challenges.” Like that story, this one is accompanied by many emotional reader comments.

‘Tab for controversial school exceeds $700,000′

The San Diego Union-Tribune carries an extended feature about “the most expensive special-education student in the San Diego school district.”

Benny Walker, who is described as “severely autistic and mentally retarded,” now attends a residential program in Canton, Massachusetts.

Because of legal mandates, San Diego Unified and other public agencies are paying the bill. Benny’s tuition and housing at the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center, where an aide is assigned to him full time, cost more than $270,000 for the 2006-07 school year. The cost since 2005 has been $732,930.

Benny is one of 17,015 special-education students in the San Diego Unified School District, the state’s second-largest. His case – while extreme – underscores the struggles faced by parents of profoundly disabled children and the extraordinary costs society pays to educate and treat them.

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