The Nov. 4 news article “Supreme Court seems poised to side with Catholic preschools” on St. Mary Catholic Parish’s preschool discussed the Supreme Court case as a question of public money and religious liberty. The Supreme Court will answer that.
But a question not up to the court to answer is whether it is faithful to Catholic teaching to turn away a child because of who their parents are. I don’t think it is.
I am Catholic, and I spent seven years in seminary and 40 years running nonprofit health care organizations. The catechism says unjust discrimination against gay persons should be avoided. Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me,” and did not set a test for their parents. In Matthew 25, the judgment turns on how we treated “the least of these,” not on how well we guarded doctrinal boundaries.
The archdiocese says it is protecting community beliefs. But a 4-year-old cannot be formed in the faith by being refused at the door. Whatever the Supreme Court decides, the church should remember who is paying the price of these preschools’ policies — the children.
James A. Lomastro, Conway, Massachusetts
Focus health care reform on this
Regarding the Nov. 4 online Health article “Democrats aim to restore ACA subsidies and Medicaid funding next year”:
Democrats should be commended for their commitment to making health insurance less expensive. But affordable insurance is not the same as affordable health care. The real challenge is ensuring timely access to quality care at a reasonable cost, which is more challenging than just having affordable insurance. The former requires recognizing the elephant in the room: hospital spending. Between 2022 and 2024, it accounted for nearly one-third of national health care expenditures and contributed 40 percent to their growth.
Across the country, particularly in rural areas, people have health insurance but still cannot see a primary care physician when they need to. Without timely primary care, patients will turn to already overcrowded emergency departments.
Fortunately, proven solutions to health care cost reduction exist. For example, when St. Thomas Community Health Center in New Orleans redesigned patient scheduling, 25 percent more patients were seen. That was accompanied by an increase in capacity to accommodate an additional 10 percent spike in demand. The health center’s financial performance improved. At Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, better coordination of scheduled admissions improved patient flow and generated $137 million in additional revenue in 2009 while avoiding costly new construction.
Making insurance affordable is an important goal. Making quality health care both affordable and accessible, while reducing its underlying costs, should be the focus of health care reform.
Eugene Litvak, Lexington, Massachusetts
The writer, an adjunct professor of operations management at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, is the president and CEO of the Institute for Healthcare Optimization.
Don’t drown out my voice
Regarding the Nov. 5 news article “Musk threw millions at the midterms. Voters handed him a stunning defeat”:
I’m a student at George Washington University in D.C., and after witnessing this election cycle, I cannot help but be disheartened about the future of our self-government. An estimated $3.9 billion was spent nationwide on advertising for House and Senate races, bringing nonstop divisive advertising and worsening polarization while the average person had their voice drowned out in a wave of cash.
Despite this, regulating campaign finance is something that Americans are united on. In May 2026, a Pew Research Center survey found that 74 percent of Americans who were polled ranked money in politics as a top problem for the country.
A proposed constitutional amendment was introduced in Congress in June with bipartisan support. It would provide Congress and the states certain authority to regulate and limit contributions and spending in campaigns for elections. The voices of average Americans should not be drowned out by the people with the deepest pockets.
Hutton Ward, Washington
What I learned from youth sports
I enjoyed Adam Annaccone’s Nov. 3 online Health column, “I’m an athletic trainer. Here’s how to know when kids’ sports are too intense”:
When I was in high school, for a short time, I accidentally became the best 5K runner my school had ever had.
Most people have the innate ability to run, so excelling at distance running depends primarily on effort and training. As a youth, I worked hard at landscaping and golf caddying to save money for college. I don’t think there is a better way to train a body for distance running than by carrying two golf bags for 36 holes every day for a summer.
Here is what I will say about my brief moment on the slopes of Olympus — having a body that does what you want it to do athletically is intoxicating. Every child deserves that feeling, and allowing a child to find their own path to glory is a great gift that a parent can give their son or daughter.
Stuart Gallant, Belmont, Massachusetts
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