[KarenH]

The economics of the IBOT is something like this:

Initially, reports said it would cost around $29,000. If they got it down to $22,000, that's a tremendous price drop! The other thing is that retrofitting a house for a standard wheelchair can cost as much as the IBOT--but I suppose Medicare doesn't pay for housing retrofits.

Here in California, I'm seeing more and more homes (in fact, most homes being built these days) that have stairs, and no elevators. When I was a kid, most houses here were one story and had just a few steps up to the front door--but even those would be impossible for a regular wheelchair. As the population ages, and more people have trouble getting around, this is going to be a huge problem.

So I hope that they keep the tooling and design for the IBOT, and will be ready to resume production (maybe of a cheaper, even better version) when things change.

The other thing to keep in mind-- If Congress and Medicare are this bad now, just think what it'll be like if the U.S. gets nationalized health care!