Immigrant arrests; healthcare costs; religious freedom

Immigrant arrests

Decades ago, the political pendulum swung to the left. Enforcement lagged on immigration laws, voting laws and the like. What should we have expected when the pendulum started to swing back to the right?

Some of the recent immigrant arrests and sentences are troubling and will surely be toned down, but the message has been delivered. I don’t blame those here illegally for being scared.

I think anyone who has broken almost any law without discovery lives in fear that one day it will come to light and their world will change.

I would like an undocumented immigrant who is here with a wife and has children who have been born here to tell me what he thought was going to happen once the laws started being enforced.

Did they think that once here they were “home free”? That their children’s birthright citizenship would provide the protection they needed to remain here?

We can show compassion, but when and how do we shut down this flow of foreigners?

Regardless of the answers, there will be millions who won’t like them.

Healthcare costs

Four obstacles will frustrate any effort to provide affordable medical care to all U.S. residents.

First, the revolution in medical technology, both in equipment and drugs has exponentially increased medical treatment capability.

Second, lifestyle behaviors of the aging U.S. population (smoking, high-fat, high-calorie diets and little exercise) has created high demand for treatment of chronic conditions (high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes), and of expensive illnesses (e.g. lung and colon cancer, coronary heart disease).

Third, life-extending medical care does not follow the law of supply and demand. High cost does not suppress demand when one’s life is at stake.

Fourth, classical insurance (life and property) follows the model that most buyers will not file a claim within a given period, and rates are determined by the insured’s risk of filing a claim. All-inclusive medical insurance does not follow this model.

We have more medical technology and more patients desiring this technology than we can afford. Once we recognize this, we can rationally debate programs to mitigate vs. solve our national health insurance problem.

Religious freedom

The Washington State Supreme Court says a florist may not refuse to make a floral arrangement for a gay wedding, even though she is religiously opposed to gay marriage.

The court noted her counsel’s recognition that the florist would not decline to make an arrangement for a Muslim wedding, even though she is religiously opposed to the Muslim faith. What’s the difference, the court asked.

The answer is so obvious that it appears the court was acting in bad faith. In the Muslim instance, the marriage is still a marriage in her view; i.e., a woman and a man. Two Baptists, two Buddhists, makes no difference. She assists in weddings.

But two men marrying is against her religious belief as to what marriage is. She is being required to assist in a ceremony that in itself she finds religiously objectionable.

Shame on the court.

This story was originally published February 22, 2017 at 4:25 PM with the headline "Immigrant arrests; healthcare costs; religious freedom."