Never mind the ACA. Let’s gut the ADA.
Senate Republicans, unsuccessful (so far) in ridding the nation of the pesky Affordable Care Act, have decided to follow the alphabet one letter forward and are taking aim at another favorite conservative punching bag, the Americans with Disabilities Act. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, (D-Ill.) accused her Republican colleagues of “declaring war on the ADA.”
Seizing on the national crisis presented by the novel coronavirus and Covid-19 and focusing on protecting businesses from liability while ignoring the bleeding coffers of states, cities and hospitals, they have troweled anti-ADA language into the Senate version of the latest pandemic relief bill. Their proposed legislation, called the HEALS Act and bundling several other proposals into one, strips liability away from employers and property owners who choose to do anything other than claim they have made all reasonable accommodations to persons with disabilities. And while the President and Chief Cheerleader Donald Trump continues to insist that the threat of the virus will “go away,” the concerned and cautious Republican senators behind this provision of the bill have drafted it so that these liability protections will remain in force until October 2024 or whenever the public health emergency is declared over, whichever comes first.