Re: NYS mandates "large print" for utility bills [Telecom]
- From: Dave Garland <dave.garland@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 29 Aug 2009 16:42:16 -0400 (EDT)
AES wrote:
Effective alternatives:
1) Online billing (which saves trees as well, and is worth doing for
its own sake), combined with onscreen magnification (Cmd-+) or even
automated text to voice translation of the online bills..
I don't dispute those benefits (though how many computers have
text-to-voice? I minister to a lot of computers, and the only time
I've ever seen it was for a guy who's eyesight is bad enough so he has
a seeing-eye dog).
But who is going to pay for the computer, onsite training, upkeep, and
Internet service for those who don't have it? There isn't always any
discretionary income left, after paying for drugs and taxes and food
and telephone. And no, how to use it is _not_ "intuitively obvious",
not to them.
(Personally, I find that online bills are far too easy to overlook in
the vast heap of spam and forwarded jokes and progress reports from
organizations that sound vaguely familiar.)
(And, acquiring some simple computer skills can have many other
advantages for elderly individuals with or without deteriorating vision:
receiving photos on line from the grandkids, email, promoting and
preserving mental skills and contact with the outside world.)
That is all true. But does not acknowledge the difficulty of making
it happen. And some seniors just don't want anything to do with
computers, really.
2) Online bill paying (if your vision is really too bad to read a bill,
is it good enough to write a check? And address an envelope?)
Writing checks is pretty easy, especially if it's what you're used to.
3) Assistance from friends or volunteer staffers at a local senior
center (which has all kinds of ancillary advantages in social contact --
and can protect against the kind of despicable but omnipresent lottery
and stock scams which prey on the old folks -- as my wife and I can
sadly tell you all about from our years caring for aging parents).
Those things are also good, but who is going to provide the rides to
and from the senior center? Will a computer, a ride, and an open
center be available at the time the senior wants to use it? (That may
be, right after the bill comes, because otherwise it gets forgotten.)
Will that take more, or less, time than writing a check? Of course,
that assumes there _is_ a local senior center.
4) And least, but not necessarily last, a simple magnifying glass or
Fresnel lens -- which my wife uses all the time. There's one in a
drawer in every room in our house.
Yes, that's a good thing to do. I'm not quite there yet, but I will
be one day.
None of these require legislation; all of them have very some level of
beneficial side effects; none of them add fairly expensive and complex
complications to the companys' tasks and systems (which is, whether you
like commercial organizations, an overall beneficial thing to do).
But some of them add (relatively) expensive and complex elements to
the senior's life.
Dave
.
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