It is truly a blunt tool for good. I've been known to rant rather a lot about the Americans with Disabilities Act and the twisted and ridiculous ways in which it is used. But the fact of the matter is, it's done an awful lot to allow disabled individuals to lead more normal, more comfortable lives. HIPAA is similar - it's a broad set of guidelines that permit people to sue over privacy which is more than the Constitution allows.
Had a boss who got to have lunch with some of the people who wrote the ADA. They copped to the fact that their legislation was deliberately vague on the presumption that caselaw would refine the regs. In plain English, "We expect a lot of people to be sued over their interpretations of our wording, and we see that as a good thing."
Laws aren't designed that way but in engineering world 2% might instead be a number that could guarantee sufficient access 95% of the time. Also according to Google 1/10 of all Americans have a severe disability so 2% is actually an underrepresented portion if you don't account for other factors
I think the worst I've ever gotten from the ADA has been needing to give screen readers something to say for visualizations and other features that are only useful if you can see, rather than just letting them ignore things that are useless to their users. I'm sure everyone using a screenreader just moves on without a second thought, but I always felt like drawing their attention to things they couldn't use was a little too much like taunting them.