2006年VOA标准英语-California Center Works for Americans With

By Mike O'Sullivan
Los Angeles
07 April 2006

More than 40 million Americans have no health insurance or access to inexpensive, high-quality medical care. A West Coast charity called the California Endowment is working to solve the problem, especially among immigrant and minority populations. The philanthropic group highlighted the issue as it opened a new resource center in Los Angeles.

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The California Endowment makes grants to hundreds of community groups that provide health education or medical care to local residents.

Bob Ross, a physician and president of the endowment, says the United States is the only industrial democracy without a universal health-care plan for its citizens. "And we have 45 million uninsured Americans. We have seven million Californians without health insurance coverage¹," he said.

He says Americans spend one-point-seven trillion dollars a year on health care, more than anyone else, but people at the bottom of the economic ladder, including African Americans and Latinos, have higher rates of disease and a shorter life expectancy² than other Americans.

 
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa 
  
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa helped dedicate the new center. He is the city's first Hispanic mayor in more than a century, and he spoke³ about the growing Latino population.

"Many of those people, by the way, work every single day. They sometimes work two jobs, and they don't have health care, and neither do their children," he said.

The inauguration⁴ of the new center in central Los Angeles featured entertainment in keeping with the multicultural⁵ setting. The center is adjacent to Chinatown and the historic Mexican area of Olvera Street. Tyler Thompson, a 10-year-old African American from Oakland, California, performed a song from a Chinese opera.

Noriaki Ito is a Buddhist⁶ priest from the nearby Little Tokyo neighborhood, home to 10,000 Japanese Americans. He says many are seniors who get help with their medical needs from the federal Medicare program, a government plan for people 65 or older and the disabled. But he says that is often not enough to cover their costs.

Bob Ross of the California Endowment says the new center will attack the problem on two levels. "We call it a grass-roots to tree-tops approach, where we believe you have to have engaged communities working in neighborhoods, working at the local level, working on new solutions to solving these problems, but at the same time, those community leaders and organizations need to impose their ideas and their strategies on policy-makers at the treetops level," he said.

Legislators in Washington have implemented⁷ a drug-benefit plan to help seniors buy their medicines. The plan went into effect this year. And some states are seeking comprehensive health care solutions on their own. The Los Angeles mayor applauded the efforts of Massachusetts, which is implementing⁸ a health insurance plan that will ensure coverage for all of the state's residents.

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 expectancy   

n.期望，预期，（根据概率统计求得）预期数额

参考例句：

• Japanese people have a very high life expectancy.日本人的平均寿命非常长。
• The atomosphere of tense expectancy sobered everyone.这种期望的紧张气氛使每个人变得严肃起来。

3 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

4 inauguration   

n.开幕、就职典礼

参考例句：

• The inauguration of a President of the United States takes place on January 20.美国总统的就职典礼于一月二十日举行。
• Three celebrated tenors sang at the president's inauguration.3位著名的男高音歌手在总统就职仪式上演唱。

5 multicultural   

adj.融合多种文化的，多种文化的

参考例句：

• Children growing up in a multicultural society.在多元文化社会中长大的孩子们。
• The school has been attempting to bring a multicultural perspective to its curriculum.这所学校已经在尝试将一种多元文化视角引入其课程。

6 Buddhist   

adj./n.佛教的，佛教徒

参考例句：

• The old lady fell down in adoration before Buddhist images.那老太太在佛像面前顶礼膜拜。
• In the eye of the Buddhist,every worldly affair is vain.在佛教徒的眼里，人世上一切事情都是空的。

7 implemented   

v.实现( implement的过去式和过去分词 )；执行；贯彻；使生效

参考例句：

• This agreement, if not implemented, is a mere scrap of paper. 这个协定如不执行只不过是一纸空文。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• The economy is in danger of collapse unless far-reaching reforms are implemented. 如果不实施影响深远的改革，经济就面临崩溃的危险。 来自辞典例句

8 implementing   

v.实现( implement的现在分词 )；执行；贯彻；使生效

参考例句：

• -- Implementing a comprehensive drug control strategy. ――实行综合治理的禁毒战略。 来自汉英非文学 - 白皮书
• He was in no hurry about implementing his unshakable principle. 他并不急于实行他那不可动摇的原则。 来自辞典例句