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  3. Death is a difficult subject for anyone, but Americans want to talk about it less than most. They have a cultural expectation th

Death is a difficult subject for anyone, but Americans want to talk about it less than most. They have a cultural expectation th

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问题     Death is a difficult subject for anyone, but Americans want to talk about it less than most. They have a cultural expectation that whatever may be wrong with them, it can be fixed with the right treatment, and if the first doctor does not offer it they may seek a second, third or fourth opinion. Legal action is a constant threat, so even if a patient is very ill and likely to die, doctors and hospitals will still persist with aggressive treatment, paid for by the insurer or, for the elderly, by Medicare. That is one reason why America spends 18% of its GDP on health care, the highest proportion in the world.
    That does not mean that Americans are getting the world’s best health care. For the past 20 years doctors at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice have been compiling the "Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care" , using Medicare data to compare health-spending patterns in different regions and institutions. They find that average costs per patient during the last two years of life in some regions can be almost twice as high as in others, yet patients in the high-spending areas do not survive any longer or enjoy better health as a result.
    Ira Byock is the director of palliative medicine at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Centre. His book is a plea for those near the end of their life to be treated more like individuals and less like medical cases on which all available technology must be let loose. With two decades’ experience in the field, he makes a good case for sometimes leaving well alone and helping people to die gently if that is what they want.
    That does not include assisted suicide, which he opposes. But it does include providing enough pain relief to make patients comfortable, co-coordinating their treatment among the different specialists, keeping them informed, having enough staff on hand to see to their needs, making arrangements for them to be cared for at home where possible—and not officiously keeping them alive when there is no hope.
    But it is not easy to decide when to stop making every effort to save someone’s life and allow them to die gently. The book quotes the case of one HIV-positive young man who was acutely ill with multiple infections. He spent over four months in hospital, much of the time on a ventilator, and had countless tests, scans and other interventions. The total bill came to over $ lm. He came close to death many times, but eventually pulled through and has now returned to a normal life. It is an uplifting story, but such an outcome is very rare.
    Dr Byock’s writing style is not everybody’s cup of tea, but he is surely right to suggest better management of a problem that can only get worse. As life expectancy keeps on rising, so will the proportion of old people in the population. And with 75m American baby-boomers now on the threshold of retirement, there is a limit to what the country can afford to spend to keep them going on and on.
According to the author, the American government will______the proposal of gentle dying.
选项 A、disapprove of
B、divide at
C、hesitate at
D、side with
答案D
解析 在文章的最后一段，作者指出随着社会老龄化现象的加剧，美国的医保体系已经无力继续承担高昂又收效甚微的治疗模式，姑息疗法势在必行。“As life expectancy keeps on rising，so will the proportion of old people in the population．And with 75m American baby—boomers now on the threshold of retirement，there is a limit to what the country can afford to spend to keep them going on and on．”因此，在作者看来，面对老年化的现实，美国政府一定会接受姑息疗法的提议。[D]选项正确。
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