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Comment by Test0129 | Hacker News Reader

The ADA is a definitely a case of great idea, terrible execution. Unfortunately, doctors (and really businesses in general) are forced into a no-win situation where as you stated you either comply in the fullest legally, or face a potential customer looking for a reason to sink your business. Where I live, the ADA is also responsible for some of the large increase in home prices over the last 20 years.

I wish it differentiated between necessary things like ramps, spots in a waiting area, etc, vs unnecessary things. There are just simply too many disabilities for even an honest, well intentioned business owner to keep up with. Of course, without retaining an insanely expensive lawyer.

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> Where I live, the ADA is also responsible for some of the large increase in home prices over the last 20 years.

Where exactly are you getting this from?

What’s an example of an unnecessary thing?

I dunno, that's the point. Since it only technically requires "reasonable accommodation" it's up to interpretation. "Reasonable accommodation" has been used by ambulance chasers to sink businesses. I'm sure a set of absolutes could be codified.

I'm getting downvoted to death for having an opinion again so I'm just gonna leave the topic.

The ADA should have been the government providing disabled people with sufficient cash to purchase the services or products they need to address their disability, or the government can provide it directly.

But by diffusing the responsibility across businesses, the government can say they helped people without spending any money or taking responsibility to help people.

For example, why would a doctor need to arrange for translation or sign language services? If the government wants to give a disabled person those benefits, the government should pay the disabled person to purchase the services of a sign language interpreter, or provide them one directly.

How does a disabled person purchase a ramp or handrail for the building they are trying to enter?

They hire someone to carry them? They fund an insurance pool that allows them to dial a handy caretaker within distance when they need it? Maybe it's enough to fund stair-capable wheel chair robots. Who knows. Maybe they just call ahead, check, and then ask a friend or family member to go with them.

Lol, thanks. I haven't laughed this hard in a long time. What an absolutely terrible solution.

This is entirely ineffective, in fact that's what the government does in many countries including the U.S.

You cannot address the second-order effects of the lack of accessibility by throwing pennies at disabled people, unless you want to write them million dollar cheques. The problem can only be solved by giving them equal access to healthcare, education, employment and society in general, when you do this you allow them to become productive members of society who are self-sufficient. Giving someone a 1000$ in welfare every month is not going to help when they were prevented from going to school, finding a job, and getting out of their house at all.

Reasonable accommodation isn’t significantly onerous in the vast majority of cases. You don’t have to provide the accommodation a person wants. For example…

- Ordering via phone could be an acceptable accommodation for an inaccessible website. (Just don’t place the person on hold for half an hour.)

- Pen and paper can be used for communication when verbal communication isn’t possible.

- If someone is blind, you may be able to read things for them.

I’ll often get people still objecting to this level of accommodation because it is still inconvenient.

> If someone is blind, you may be able to read things for them.

You should see the look on the receptionist’s face when she has to, oh no, fill out the stupid overly repetitive paperwork doctors give their patients. The last time I did it I had to fill out my name and address like five different times.

> Reasonable accommodation isn’t significantly onerous in the vast majority of cases.

You are correct that a reasonable accommodation isn't particularly hard in many cases.

The disconnect in communication here is that you're thinking in terms of a reasonable person.

Unreasonable people exist.

There are unfortunately some disabled people that would refuse to be satisfied by almost anything you provide them. The ADA lawsuits don't magically vanish just because you try and be reasonable and they refuse to be satisfied in turn hoping for some payday.

The vast majority of disabled people are probably thankful for the accommodation, but it just takes 1 ambulance chasing jerk to pursue a dumb case that sinks a business.

One unreasonable person can ruin a lot of things. You’re never getting around that. I wish ADA wasn’t handled by lawsuits, but everything is the US is a fucking lawsuit…

The problem I have is many businesses don’t even try in the first place. They don’t know anything about ADA and point to the one unreasonable person as justification to do nothing.

There are far more businesses being “unreasonable” than there are people filing ADA lawsuits.

> The problem I have is many businesses don’t even try in the first place.

Is this perception accurate? I have my own life experience and thankfully do not have any disabilities that I know of, but it definitely doesn't seem this way to me.

For example, if a disabled person went into a restaurant and asked for a bigger seating area to accommodate their wheelchair or crutches or whatever, is there a restaurant out there that wouldn't try to rearrange the tables or move stuff around where possible? I'm using this example because I worked in different restaurants in the past and all of them were happy to carry tables up and down stairs to make space and even force other seated customers to move to ensure that anybody who wanted extra space was accommodated.

Not sure what else you want to see from stores.

You are correct that "reasonable accommodations" are, in fact, reasonable and don't have to be exactly what a disabled person asks for (though listening to people when they tell you what they need is important).

> Ordering via phone could be an acceptable accommodation for an inaccessible website

A particular person may find ordering by phone to be acceptable but in court cases, it has been found to not be equal to using an accessible website. One example is in the Domoino's case [0] (it references experiencing long hold times but there are other reasons it is unequal).

[0] https://www.lflegal.com/2021/06/dominos-june-2021/#A-phone-i...

Domoino’s had 45+ minute wait times. That’s what got them in trouble.

Phones are an acceptable alternative if you can provide equivalent service.

A screen reader user can read all the information in a decent online menu way faster than having a Domino's employee read it to them. A customer who is deafblind or is blind and has a speech disability would need to use a TTY relay service, which makes it even slower.

It is not unreasonable to make an ordering website accessible; Domino's even admitted it would only cost $58,000. $58K would be a lot if every individual restaurant in the country had to spend that much. Thankfully, that's not the case, most don't have an don't need their own bespoke ordering site, they license a platform.

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