英语播客EnglishPod 478

 A:     Hey honey, how was your day?

 B:     It was alright. I ran into Billand we got totalking for
       a whileHe’s in a bit of a jam.

 A:    Why? What happened?

 B:    Well, his son had an accident and Bill doesn’t have
        health insurance. This really got me thinking, and
        I wondered if we shouldn’t look into a couple of
       different HMO’s.

 A:    Yeah, you’re right.  We aren’t getting any younger
       and our kids are getting older.

 B:     Exactly! I searched onthe web and found a couple
       of HMO’s with low co pays and good coverage¹.
       The deductibles are low, too.

 A:    Sounds good, although, do you think we can qual-
        ify  for  insurance? Those  insurance  companies
       are real pirates² when it comes to money.

 B:    Well,  we don’t have any pre existing illnesses or
       conditions, so we should be fine.
 A:    I wish our company or country provided³ us with
       healthcare.

 B:    Not in a million years!
 

1 coverage   

n.报导，保险范围，保险额，范围，覆盖

参考例句：

• There's little coverage of foreign news in the newspaper.报纸上几乎没有国外新闻报道。
• This is an insurance policy with extensive coverage.这是一项承保范围广泛的保险。

2 pirates   

n.海盗( pirate的名词复数 )；剽窃者；侵犯版权者；非法播音的人（或组织）

参考例句：

• Children dressed (themselves) up as pirates. 孩子们假扮成海盗。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• The pirates treated their captives with barbarity. 海盗们残暴地对待他们的俘虏。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

3 provided   

conj.假如，若是；adj.预备好的，由...供给的

参考例句：

• Provided it's fine we will have a pleasant holiday.如果天气良好，我们的假日将过得非常愉快。
• I will come provided that it's not raining tomorrow.如果明天不下雨，我就来。