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  3. The nation’s 47 million uninsured are not the only reason that health care has become a big issue in the presidential campaigns

The nation’s 47 million uninsured are not the only reason that health care has become a big issue in the presidential campaigns

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问题     The nation’s 47 million uninsured are not the only reason that health care has become a big issue  in the presidential campaigns.【B16】_____________Even  back in  2005,  the  health  expenditures  for each U.S. citizen exceeded the entire per capita incomes of Chile or Venezuela.
    The soaring spending is rooted in the nation’s technophilia: medical technology accounts for as much as half the growth in health care spending.【B17】__________Our love affair with next-generation imaging machines, implantable devices and the like has blinded us to the reality that little evidence often exists for whether something novel works any better than existing equipment, procedures or chemicals.
    The recently published book Overtreated by New America Foundation Fellow Shannon Brownlee documents how surgical operations to relieve back pain, elective angioplasties that enlarge partially blocked coronary arteries and superfluous computed tomography contribute to the $400 billion to $700 billion in medical care that does not better our health. In 2005 the state of Ohio had more magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanners than did all of Canada, leading physicians in Toledo to joke about why cars passing by city hospitals don’t swerve out of control because of strong magnetic fields.【B18】_____________________________________________________
    Brownlee’s book does not even touch on some ultra-high tech, such as the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center’s $125-million proton-beam facility, filled with a physics-grade particle accelerator, that kills tumor cells.【B19】____________One solution, advocated by Brownlee and some other health policy analysts, is a renewal of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)—or the creation of an organization like it—that would compare different treatments. It would be entrusted with comparing the benefits and risks of drugs, procedures and medical devices, while assessing any benefits against costs. The same Newt Gingrich—led Congress that eliminated the Office of Technology Assessment in 1995 almost did away with the AHRQ, which barely survived with diminished funding and powers.
    【B20】__________________________________________________
    For a revitalized AHRQ or a clone thereof to work as it should will require that a new president follow through with adequate funding, an assurance that Medicare will consider seriously its findings and, perhaps most important, a Federal Reserve—like independence from the momentary whims of the political establishment. A watchdog that helps to ensure we pay only for what works, notwithstanding the entreaties of drug companies and equipment manufacturers to do the opposite, will provide a powerful brake on the growing costs already choking our medical system.
    [A]  Questions remain, however, about whether proton beams are more effective than another form of radiotherapy that M. D. Anderson already offers.
    [B]  Besides leaving many uncovered, the U.S. also has trouble controlling the spending habits of a health care giant that is on track to consume 20 cents of every dollar by 2015, a tripling from 1970 levels.
    [C]  It now serves only as an information clearinghouse, not an organization that makes recommendations on Medicare reimbursement decisions.
    [D]   Although this trend has benefited everyone—witness the near halving of heart attack deaths from 1980 to 2000—not all those added dollars have been as well spent as drug and device manufacturers would have us believe.
    [E]  Yet studies have shown that imaging techniques such as MRI have not improved diagnosis as much as doctors and patients think they have.
    [F]  Several Democratic candidates, including Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, have expressed their approval to the need for institutes that would lay the foundation for "evidence-based" medicine.
【B17】
选项
答案D
解析 本段开头使指出，医疗保健支出的增长源于技术崇拜心理(technophilia)，而空格后质疑新奇的医疗手段(something novel)是否真的比现有的医疗设备、医疗程序或药品(existing equipment，procedures or chemicals)更有效，故推断空格处与医疗新技术及其效果有关。D说到资金投入多，而治疗效果却未必良好，与下文的质疑衔接自然，意思连贯。再者，D开头的this trend指的就是前文中“医学技术占医疗保健支出增长的50％之多”这一重视发展医学技术的趋势。故D为正确答案。
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