Most people would be impressed by the high quality of medicine available to most Americans. There is a lot of specialization, a great deal of attention to the individual, a vast amount of advanced technical equipment, and intense effort not to make mistakes because of the financial risk which doctors and hospitals must face in the courts if they handle things badly.But the Americans are in a mess. The problem is the way in which health care is organized and financed. Contrary to public belief, it is not just a free competition system. To the private system has been joined a large public system, because private care was simply not looking after the less fortunate and the elderly.But even with this huge public part of the system, which this year will eat up 84.5 billion dollars—more than 10 percent of the U. S. budget—large numbers of Americans are left out. These include about half the 11 million unemployed and those who fail to meet the strict limits on income fixed by a government trying to make savings where it can.The basic problem, however, is that there is no central control over the health system. There is no limit to what doctors and hospitals charge for their services, other than what the public is able to pay. The number of doctors has shot up and prices have climbed. When faced with toothache, a sick child, or a heart attack, all the unfortunate person concerned can do is pay up.Two-thirds of the population are covered by medical insurance. Doctors charge as much as they want knowing that the insurance company will pay the bill.The medical profession has as a result become America’s new big businessmen. The average income of doctors has now reached $ 100,000 a year. With such vast incomes the talk in the doctor’s surgery is as likely to be about the doctor’s latest financial deal, as about whether the minor operation he is recommending at, several thousand dollars is entirely necessary.The rising cost of medicine in the U. S. A. is among the most worrying problem facing the country. In 1981 the country’s health cost climbed 15.9 percent—about twice as fast as prices in general. The phase "in a mess" underlined in Paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to ().
A. in disorder
B. untidy
C. unclean
D. chaotic
查看答案
Every group has a culture, however uncivilized it may seem to us. To the professional anthropologist, there is no intrinsic superiority of one culture over another, just as to the professional linguist, there is no intrinsic hierarchy among languages.People once thought of the languages of backward groups as undeveloped. While it is possible that language in general began as a series of grunts and groans, it is a fact established by the study of "backward" languages that no spoken tongue answers that description today. Most languages of uncivilized groups are, by our most severe standards, extremely complex. They differ from western languages not in their sound patterns or grammatical structures, which usually are fully adequate for all language needs, but only in their vocabularies, which reflect the objects and activities known to their speakers. Even in this aspect, two things are to he noted. First, all languages seem to possess the machinery for vocabulary expansion, either by putting together words already in existence or by borrowing them from other languages and adapting them to their own system. Second, the objects and activities requiting names and distinctions in "backward" languages, while different from the west, are often surprisingly numerous and complicated. A western language distinguishes merely between two degrees of remoteness "this" and "that". But some languages of the American Indians distinguish between what is close to the speaker, or to the person addressed, or removed from both, or out of sight, or in the past, or in the future. To the professional linguists, ().
A. there is no intrinsic superiority of cultures
B. there is no intrinsic hierarchy of languages
C. all languages came from grunts and groans
D. all languages are most severe and standard
Most people would be impressed by the high quality of medicine available to most Americans. There is a lot of specialization, a great deal of attention to the individual, a vast amount of advanced technical equipment, and intense effort not to make mistakes because of the financial risk which doctors and hospitals must face in the courts if they handle things badly.But the Americans are in a mess. The problem is the way in which health care is organized and financed. Contrary to public belief, it is not just a free competition system. To the private system has been joined a large public system, because private care was simply not looking after the less fortunate and the elderly.But even with this huge public part of the system, which this year will eat up 84.5 billion dollars—more than 10 percent of the U. S. budget—large numbers of Americans are left out. These include about half the 11 million unemployed and those who fail to meet the strict limits on income fixed by a government trying to make savings where it can.The basic problem, however, is that there is no central control over the health system. There is no limit to what doctors and hospitals charge for their services, other than what the public is able to pay. The number of doctors has shot up and prices have climbed. When faced with toothache, a sick child, or a heart attack, all the unfortunate person concerned can do is pay up.Two-thirds of the population are covered by medical insurance. Doctors charge as much as they want knowing that the insurance company will pay the bill.The medical profession has as a result become America’s new big businessmen. The average income of doctors has now reached $ 100,000 a year. With such vast incomes the talk in the doctor’s surgery is as likely to be about the doctor’s latest financial deal, as about whether the minor operation he is recommending at, several thousand dollars is entirely necessary.The rising cost of medicine in the U. S. A. is among the most worrying problem facing the country. In 1981 the country’s health cost climbed 15.9 percent—about twice as fast as prices in general. The word "specialization" underlined in Paragraph 1 is closest in meaning to()。
A. restriction
B. class
C. standard
D. norm
Most people would be impressed by the high quality of medicine available to most Americans. There is a lot of specialization, a great deal of attention to the individual, a vast amount of advanced technical equipment, and intense effort not to make mistakes because of the financial risk which doctors and hospitals must face in the courts if they handle things badly.But the Americans are in a mess. The problem is the way in which health care is organized and financed. Contrary to public belief, it is not just a free competition system. To the private system has been joined a large public system, because private care was simply not looking after the less fortunate and the elderly.But even with this huge public part of the system, which this year will eat up 84.5 billion dollars—more than 10 percent of the U. S. budget—large numbers of Americans are left out. These include about half the 11 million unemployed and those who fail to meet the strict limits on income fixed by a government trying to make savings where it can.The basic problem, however, is that there is no central control over the health system. There is no limit to what doctors and hospitals charge for their services, other than what the public is able to pay. The number of doctors has shot up and prices have climbed. When faced with toothache, a sick child, or a heart attack, all the unfortunate person concerned can do is pay up.Two-thirds of the population are covered by medical insurance. Doctors charge as much as they want knowing that the insurance company will pay the bill.The medical profession has as a result become America’s new big businessmen. The average income of doctors has now reached $ 100,000 a year. With such vast incomes the talk in the doctor’s surgery is as likely to be about the doctor’s latest financial deal, as about whether the minor operation he is recommending at, several thousand dollars is entirely necessary.The rising cost of medicine in the U. S. A. is among the most worrying problem facing the country. In 1981 the country’s health cost climbed 15.9 percent—about twice as fast as prices in general. The phase "left out" underlined in Paragraph 3 is closest in meaning to ().
A. ignore
B. consider
C. eliminate
D. debar
Most people would be impressed by the high quality of medicine available to most Americans. There is a lot of specialization, a great deal of attention to the individual, a vast amount of advanced technical equipment, and intense effort not to make mistakes because of the financial risk which doctors and hospitals must face in the courts if they handle things badly.But the Americans are in a mess. The problem is the way in which health care is organized and financed. Contrary to public belief, it is not just a free competition system. To the private system has been joined a large public system, because private care was simply not looking after the less fortunate and the elderly.But even with this huge public part of the system, which this year will eat up 84.5 billion dollars—more than 10 percent of the U. S. budget—large numbers of Americans are left out. These include about half the 11 million unemployed and those who fail to meet the strict limits on income fixed by a government trying to make savings where it can.The basic problem, however, is that there is no central control over the health system. There is no limit to what doctors and hospitals charge for their services, other than what the public is able to pay. The number of doctors has shot up and prices have climbed. When faced with toothache, a sick child, or a heart attack, all the unfortunate person concerned can do is pay up.Two-thirds of the population are covered by medical insurance. Doctors charge as much as they want knowing that the insurance company will pay the bill.The medical profession has as a result become America’s new big businessmen. The average income of doctors has now reached $ 100,000 a year. With such vast incomes the talk in the doctor’s surgery is as likely to be about the doctor’s latest financial deal, as about whether the minor operation he is recommending at, several thousand dollars is entirely necessary.The rising cost of medicine in the U. S. A. is among the most worrying problem facing the country. In 1981 the country’s health cost climbed 15.9 percent—about twice as fast as prices in general. In the U. S. patients can expect, in medical treatment, ().
A. occasional mistakes by careless doctors
B. a great deal of personal attention
C. low charge by doctors and hospitals
D. slacking nurses and bad services