Pieces of the insurers’ pie

Health care spending

Regarding “U.S. health care bill in 2018 came to $3.6T,” (B1, Dec. 27): As I looked at the pie chart “How America’s health care dollar is spent,” I noted a glaring omission until I saw the source was the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. These are government-managed services, so the numbers presented are known. It would be extremely interesting to see a similar chart for services provided by for-profit private insurers, which cover the majority of workers insured by employer-sponsored plans. The most interesting pieces of that pie would be the non-medical expenses, most notably administration costs, and profit. We will, of course, never see such a pie. James Wright, Houston

Welcoming refugees

Regarding “Texas may shut out refugees,” (A1, Dec. 27): I was disgusted to open my morning paper to Gov. Abbott’s failure to agree to welcome refugees in Texas, despite approval from the mayors of our state’s major cities. My parents were white Christians. I watched both of my parents welcome newcomers and foreign-born neighbors with open arms, and I believed that was Christianity at its finest.

Now I have a president and a governor who proclaim themselves to be Christian, but perpetuate the myth that our nation was founded to be solely Christian by turning their backs on their perceived “other.” If their professed faith does not move them, they should at least study the economic importance of refugees in the report “Houston’s Economic Future: Immigration,” available at futurehouston.org. They would learn that 60 percent of Houston’s medical and life scientists who help save our lives are foreign-born (including my physician).

By converting to Humanism, which stresses the potential value and goodness of all human beings, I have been able to associate myself with what are no longer universal Christian values. Page S. Williams, Houston

‘What would Jesus do?

Regarding “Editorial against Trump has important message for evangelicals,” (A3, Dec. 25): We wear the bracelets “What would Jesus do?” Well, that’s what “Christianity Today” is asking. Have Christians turned a blind eye to our president’s personal behavior, which is so blatantly against what the Bible teaches us? What message are we sending to our children, to the world? David Murray, Houston

BIBLE VERSE

See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. Isaiah 43:19