Earlier quoted context omitted.
> will a dollar spent on wheelchair ramps in buildings across the USA give a greater quality of life improvement to the average american than a dollar spent on medical research that tries to repair spinal nerves? Yes, I don’t know why this is even a question. Ramps support people who will never need spinal nerve repair. They support strollers, wheeled luggage, canes, crutches, fall risk folks, furniture movers, bike/…
But medical research leads to treatments which may have far better quality of life improvements than ramps. And when discovered, those treatments can be used forever, whereas ramps require constant spending for every new or renovated building. Both are 'obviously' better than the other, depending on what you look at. Therefore the decision really should be made with more data.
And what you are omitting is the very high cost to people needing accessibility right now.
Those discoveries are:
Not a sure thing
Not on an easy to quantify timeline
Not broadly applicable.
And this is not zero sum. Every dollar spent on accessibility pays off right now. Starts paying the moment access is improved.
We can always, and should always, be advancing medicine.
There is nothing in the way of better accessibility. We can do it now and it pays us well when we do.
There are things in the way of, "let's just fix the people!" and the fact that we do not know how, do not know when we will know how, is in our way solid, like we can't miss it.
Finally, treatments can be used, until they can't. And "can't" comes up an awful lot. Ramps and other devices just work.
They work even when people do not need them to work, or people do not expect to need them. The world is just easier, and new moms, old people, and many others get the benefit.
So, when "we can't" comes up, what is the answer for those people?
I propose:
Boy those accessibility spends are really helping a lot of people! Sure glad we did that work.
And remember, YOU yourself, right there reading this, very well could be one of those people. You don't know.
None of us does, which is why the work is being done.