2013公共英语阅读范文及译文4
2013公共英语阅读范文及译文4
For all it flaws, medical care in the United States has been reformed gigantically over the past several decades. Deaths from heart disease have fallen by 40 percent since 1970. thanks to better detection and treatment, cancer advances have helped to raise U.S. life expectancy from an average of 68 years in 1950 to 77 years today.
Not only have American lives grown longer, but their quality has improved. The proportion of people over 65 with one or more chronic disabilities—such as the inability to walk, or to get dressed, without aid—declined from greater than 25 percent in 1982 to less than 20 percent in 1999. and the development of vision-correction surgery, among many other drugs and procedures, has allowed many Americans to prolong pleasures historically with youth.
Of course, not all the recent improvements in American health and longevity can be directly attributed to our health-care system; some are as much the result of adopting healthier habits( exercise, better diet) or of dropping unhealthy ones (smoking, too much alcohol-drinking). Still, better medical care is the principal cause of improvements in American health and life span over the past 50 years.
But the problem is that since 1960 health-care spending has grown significantly faster than the economy, meaning that we’re spending an ever larger portion of our incomes on medical core. In 1960 health care constituted 5.1 percent of the U.S. economy; in 1980 it constituted 8.8 percent; today it constitutes 13.3 percent. Meanwhile, private health-insurance premiums—which rose by 14 percent last year alone —are becoming unaffordable for ever Americans. The number of things we can do to pay for them. 41 millions of our citizens are now uninsured. So the key question is not whether health care should be rationed in the United States; it already is. Rather the question is how health care should be rationed. How should the potential benefits of reduced pain, improved quality of life, or extended life be weighted against the high costs of the medications or procedures involved? And who should weigh them? These are hard questions with high moral stakes. But we do hope that the health-care system will cover more people.
