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The RealBenefits Company Seek Capital Favor About one-third of Americans who quality for public assistance haven’t signed up

admin2013-04-03  78
问题                 The RealBenefits Company Seek Capital Favor
    About one-third of Americans who quality for public assistance haven’t signed up. That amounts to millions of people needlessly going without food stamps, low-income housing or health insurance.
    This trouble is what RealBenef its, a Boston-hasd software start-up, was created to solve. The five-person firm’s Web databae substitutes easy-to-use screening and enrollment tools for complicated government paperwork. So far RealBenefits has connected nearly 100,000 families to more than $371 million in government aid since 2000.
    Yet along with this success, Real-Benefits, which began life as a nonprofit, faced the same dilemma that many social enterprises do: how to scale up without selling out. "No software firm is going to attract donors easily, even a nonprofit," says Sharon Oster, dean of the Yale School of Management and an expert on social entrepreneurship.
    "And to grow, you need access to equity capital."
    So in 2006 , RealBenefits went commercial. Still tucked under the umbrella of founder Community Catalyst, the sales staff began slowly refocusing its energy on paying customers like hospital chains, governments and school districts rather than the community organizations and nonprofits that had previously peppered its client list. A subscription-based service, RealBenefits charges a fee that ranges from $ 10,000 for, say, a homeless-services group to six figures on the high end. "Our model was to find large healthcare providers whom be willing to pay because they were actually increasing reimbursements and minimizing uncompensated care by using our technology," says CEO Enrique Balaguer.
    At both ends, low-income families win. Whereas an uninsured patient going to the emergency room once faced a bill for thousands of dollars, now, using RealBenefits, hospital staff can screen him to see if he is qualified to file a claim with Medicaid. One Massachusetts hospital, Baystate Medical Center, reported a 50% increase in the number of Medicaid reimbursements it received in 2006 by using RealBenefits.
    Nonetheless, RealBenefits was still struggling to expand because of the difficulty of accessing capital. So the firm set out to find a buyer willing to continue its social mission. It eventually settled on TriHealix, a Connecticut-based health-care IT company.
    The June 2008 deal was worth $ 3 million to $4 million, Balaguer says.
    For RealBenefits, the transaction allowed it to tap into a larger sales and marketing force. The firm now aims to expand into at least 15 states over the next two to three years. "Our three core goals-to maximize benefits to families, effect policy change and to create additional capacity— remain in place," Balaguer says. "And being profitable is a major component of that." It’s a target that will most likely pay dividends to the whole community.
What does the phrase "social mission"( Lines 4~5,Para. 6) refer to?
选项 A、To help low-income families get public assistance.
B、To help health-care providers get reimbursements.
C、To help community organizations get donation.
D、To help government effect its social security policies.
答案A
解析 语义理解题。纵观全文，RealBenefits建立的初衷就是帮助符合条件的低收入家庭获取政府救助，即使商业化之后仍然惠及低收入家庭，现在要把这一社会使命继续下去，由此我们能够推断出social commission指的是前面提到的帮助更多的低收人家庭获取政府救助，故正确答案为[A]。其他选项中提到的组织机构或公司，只是作为RealBenefits实现这一使命的中间环节，均不正确。
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