The health-care economy is filled with unusual and even unique economic relationships. One of the least understood involves the

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问题      The health-care economy is filled with unusual and even unique economic relationships. One of the least understood involves the peculiar roles of producer of "provider" and purchaser of "consumer" in the typical doctor-patient relationship. In most sectors of the economy, it is the seller who attempts to attract a potential buyer with various inducements of price, quality, and utility, and it is the buyer who makes the decision. Such condition, however, does not prevail in most of the health-care industry.
     In the health-care industry, the doctor-patient relationship is the mirror image of the ordinary relationship between producer and consumer. Once an individual has chosen to see a physician—and even then there may be no real choice—it is the physician who usually makes all significant purchasing decisions: whether the patient should return "next Wednesday", whether X-rays are needed, whether drugs should be prescribed, etc. It is a rare and sophisticated patient who will challenge such professional decisions or raise in advance questions about price, especially when the disease is regarded as serious.
     This is particularly significant in relation to hospital care. The physician must certify the need for hospitalization, determine what procedures will be performed, and announce when the patient may be discharged. The patient may be consulted about some of these decisions, but it is the doctor’s judgments that are final. Little wonder then that in the eyes of the hospital it is the physician who is the real "consumer". As a consequence, the medical staff represents the "power center" in hospital policy and decision-making, not the administration.
     Although usually there are in this situation four identifiable participants—the hospital, the physician, the patient, and the payer (generally an insurance carder or government )—the physician makes the essential for all of them. The hospital becomes an extension of the physician; the payer generally meets most of the bills generated by the physician / hospital, and for the most part the patient plays a passive role. We estimate that about 75-80 percent of health-care expenditures are determined, by physicians, not patients. For this reason, economy directed at patients or the general are relatively ineffective.
According to the author, when a doctor tells a patient to "return next Wednesday", the doctor is in fact

选项 A、instructing the patient to buy more medical services.
B、warning the patient that a hospital stay might be necessary.
C、advising the patient to seek a second opinion.
D、admitting that the initial visit was ineffective.

答案A

解析 本题考查推理判断。第二段中举了具体的例子,说明前文的 purchasing decisions(购买决定)。所以从经济学的角度来看,让病人下周三再来就是让病人购买更多的医疗服务。文章主要从经济学的角度来分析医生和病人之间的关系,所以B 、C 、D 都不太切题。
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