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  3. The Conservative government will face difficulty proving that its plan to automatically enroll eligible Canadians in the Old Age

The Conservative government will face difficulty proving that its plan to automatically enroll eligible Canadians in the Old Age

admin2015-01-31  40
问题     The Conservative government will face difficulty proving that its plan to automatically enroll eligible Canadians in the Old Age Security plan will save taxpayers money. An audit on the first phase of the program has found the department responsible, Employment and Social Development Canada(ESDC), couldn’t show "expected benefits" from the program because it has no measurable targets.
    The government plans to gradually increase the age of eligibility for OAS benefits to 67 from 65 starting in 2023, but it plans to more quickly introduce automatic enrollment for eligible Canadians. The Tories argue the move will help federal coffers through reduced benefit costs and reduced service spending. The audit, however, concluded the department’ s targets "were not documented, specific or measurable." For instance, there were no "measurable targets" set for one of the keys to the government’s strategy: "improve services to Canadians." According to the audit, the department did plan to use one specific measurement to gauge effectiveness: the number of Canadians who could be enrolled automatically versus those who are actually enrolled.
    The auditor, however, argued that this shouldn’t be used to show the government was reducing "costly paper processing", because some seniors who were auto-enrolled would still have to file paper applications "for a number of reasons" — such as to defer taking the OAS. "With limited baseline information on the costs for paper application processing, it will be difficult to demonstrate the planned productivity improvements and their associated savings," the auditors wrote in their report, dated February 2014 but only published a few weeks ago.
    The government announced in the 2012 budget the eligibility age would change to 67 from 65, but it would be phased in over six years, starting in 2023. That means anyone who was 56 or older as of March of this year won’t be affected.
    The government estimated the savings at $10.8 billion annually starting in 2030, when 9.3 million Canadians are projected to be eligible for OAS benefits—almost double the 4.7 million eligible in 2010. To further reduce costs, the government planned to automatically enroll eligible Canadians and eliminate the need for seniors to receive and return a mailed enrollment form.
    The audit team reviewing the first phase of the OAS changes concluded ESDC had enough oversight for the first phase of the project, which was to use information already available within the department and to identify Canadians for possible automatic enrollment. However, auditors had concerns with how the department planned to prove in the long-term that the changes to the OAS program were having their intended effects. For example, "there is currently limited capacity to monitor the additional workload introduced by the implementation of automatic enrollment," they wrote.
What does the audit team worry about the program?
选项 A、How to prove the changes to the OAS program were having their intended effects.
B、How to monitor the additional workload introduced by automatic enrollment.
C、How to further reduce cost.
D、How to achieve the intended effects.
答案A
解析 细节题。本题考查的是审计组对于老年保障项目的担忧之处，可以定位到文中的However，auditors had concerns with how the department planned to prove inthe long—term that the changes to the OAS program were having their intended effects．For example，“there is currently limited capacity to monitor the additional workloadintroduced by the implementation of automatic enrollment．”they wrote，从这里可以看出审计员们担心加拿大就业和社会发展部无法向人们展示老年保障改革能达到预期效果。A项符合文章意思。B项是文中列举的一个例子，以偏概全了。C讲如何进一步减少费不是审计员们担心的部分，D项讲如何实现预期效果也不符合文章原意。因此，正确答案是A。
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