Ready & Abled

President Obama leads a healthcare debate in Washington on Feb. 25, 2010

I’m watching the healthcare debate on T.V., with President Obama taking a very CEO-roundtable-like style to try to bring together a roomful of lawmakers to agree on a comprehensive $950 billion healthcare bill.

Obama sits at the head of a square conference table, flanked by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Lamar Alexander, John McCain and other Republican senators sit to Obama’s left. “We want a discussion, not talking points,” Obama says.

The GOP discussion is namely centered on reducing costs through program spending cuts and holding more doctors and hospitals accountable. The Democrats talk about expanding the system to cover all Americans, including low-income families and people with disabilities.

Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd, who is on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions committee, is in the room. Dodd is the second-ranking Democrat on the committee, but has announced that he will not run for re-election in 2010.

Sitting next to Dodd is Iowa Senator Tom Harkin, who leads the committee and is an ardent supporter of people with disabilities. Harkin is working to pass the Community Choice Act, which would give people with long-term disabilities the opportunity to remain in their homes and communities rather than have to go into a nursing home.

As it stands now, state Medicaid programs (designed for low-income and people with disabilities) will pay for nursing home but not in-home personal care. Currently, individuals seeking in-home care must apply through a waiver program — but there’s a long waiting line.

Ultimately, a Community Choice Act law is probably too expensive to pass given the need to appease Republican’s cries on holding down costs. Community Choice is estimated to cost between $2 billion to $4 billion a year. Nor was disability even mentioned in Obama’s recent State of the Union speech.

However, Harkin is working on an other bill that does have a chance, even if cloudy: The Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) Act, which was sponsored by the late Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts.

The CLASS Act would create a new, nationwide disability insurance program, financed through payroll deductions, with opt-out enrollment at a cost of around $65 a month for most Americans. Democrats see this as a way for middle-class families to plan for a disability or a chronic illness, like cancer.

All of the above is just gravy, really, because without overarching healthcare reform then million of Americans, including those with disabilities and pre-existing conditions like cancer, epilepsy or diabetes, may be turned away by insurance companies. And that’s a fact, not a talking point.

I got two press releases yesterday. One from Hotels.com, and another from Expedia.com, both claiming that they have renovated their websites to let people with physical disabilities search for accessible hotel rooms. While this seems like good news, here’s what they didn’t say:

1. Customers can search for, but not book, accessible rooms. I thought the point was to be able to book them? Look at the booking engine for Expedia below. I did a mock booking of a hotel room in Boston, and Expedia lets you “select” your “options,” but this is deceptive. Because an Expedia customer service rep has to then call the hotel to confirm availability of say, a roll-in shower.

2. There’s no guarantee you’ll get an accessible room. Expedia says that if a room is available, you will receive a confirmation email. If it’s not, well, you are going to have to book a different room, at a potentially higher price. Says Expedia: “Accessibility arrangements are not guaranteed and may incur additional fees.” They also forgot to take out the old “Special requests” window, which is where disabled travelers pleaded their case before the lawsuit came along.

3. Yes, there was a lawsuit. Expedia.com of Bellevue, Wash., and its subsidiary, Hotels.com, are making these concessions as part of a Americans with Disabilities Act lawsuit settlement. In the class-action lawsuit, which was filed in Oakland, Calif., the plaintiffs say they traveled often with a dance troupe for people with and without disabilities and found that wheelchair-accessible rooms weren’t guaranteed.

4. The ADA already covers most of these accessibility feaures. Telephone equipment for the deaf? Handicapped parking? Does Expedia really believe that without their efforts, we wouldn’t be able to find either of these in our hotels? The ADA requires hotels to have telephone kits for the deaf, and handicapped parking is, well, ubiquitous. What about the more hard-to-find features, like short stature accessibility kits that are in use by some Wyndham chains. Or lowered peep holes for guests in wheelchairs. There is a value in being able to search for rooms with roll-in showers as some of the boutique or older hotels don’t have these yet. But I suspect all the big chains, like Hilton and Marriott do — so just book there.

5. The accessibility box is hard to find. On Hotels.com, I have to scroll down and I can’t even make out what these features are: What’s “Accessible path o…?” I wrote to Dan Guarino, the PR person for Hotels.com to ask about this, but he never got back to me.

Overalll, I think Expedia satisfied the ramifications of its lawsuit settlement but I would like to see them work with hotels to integrate accessibility booking right into the search engine. I’d like to see more features and explanations of what each feature offers to a guest. I’d also like some rankings of which hotels do better than others in terms of accessibility. That, would be a value-added service that people with disabilities would truly embrace.