VOA标准英语2009-US Senate Set for Key Health Care Reform Vot

US Senate is scheduled to take crucial vote on Saturday on legislation crafted by majority Democrats² to reform US health care system. Democrats, facing expected unanimous opposition³ from Senate Republicans, need to ensure all 60 of their members vote in favor of moving ahead to full debate

Dan Robinson | Capitol Hill 20 November 2009

 
Photo: AP
Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin of Ill., (C), Sen. Jack⁴ Reed, D-R.I., (L), and Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., during health care reform news conference on Capitol Hill, Washington, 20 Nov 2009

The U.S. Senate is scheduled to take a crucial vote on Saturday on legislation crafted by majority Democrats to reform the U.S. health care system.  Democrats, facing expected unanimous opposition from Republicans in the chamber⁵, need to ensure that all 60 of their members vote in favor of moving ahead to a full debate on the measure.

Democratic Majority leader Harry⁶ Reid has set the vote for eight o'clock Saturday evening.

Though only a procedural step, it is a crucial test of Democrat¹'s ability to ensure 60 votes required to overcome obstacles to moving the legislation ahead.

Senators engaged in a day-long debate on Friday ahead of the Saturday vote.

Ohio Democrat Sherrod Brown said the bill would inject needed competition into the health insurance market, providing Americans with an alternative to private companies that have made huge profits while excluding persons with pre-existing medical conditions:

"Insurance company profits have gone up 400 percent over the last 7 years because the insurance companies denied care for so many people so they can't get insurance, and then they turn down so many claims.  Thirty percent of insurance company claims are turned down initially⁷ by the insurer," said Brown.

Republicans continued to attack the more than 2,000 page bill as a huge enlargement of the existing government health care bureaucracy, asserting it would force millions of Americans to pay higher insurance costs.

Though the bipartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated the cost of the legislation at just under $850 billion, Republicans maintain that its actual cost will be $2.5 trillion over 10 years.

 
AP
Senate Minority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell of Ky., (C) shows copy of Democratic health care reform bill during news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, 20 Nov 2009

Mitch McConnell is the Senate Republican leader:

"Once everything kicks in, if you look at a 10 year window after everything kicks in, this monstrous⁸ 2,074 page bill would actually cost $2.5 trillion.  A massive, massive expansion of the federal government," he said.

The Senate bill would create a government-offered insurance option to compete with private insurance companies, and extend insurance coverage⁹ to 31 million Americans, pushing the national coverage rate for legal U.S. residents to about 94 percent. 

That compares to a 96 percent estimate for legislation the House of Representatives approved two weeks ago, which like the Senate bill would rely on new taxes on wealthier Americans, and about $400 billion in savings¹⁰ from the government-run Medicare program.

Two western state senators, Wyoming Republican Mike Enzi and Patty Murray from Washington state, made opposing points about the economic impacts of the legislation:

ENZI: "The bill would reduce wages and eliminate the jobs of millions of Americans.  It would actually drive up health insurance premiums¹¹ for many more Americans and still leave 24 million people without insurance coverage.  We need to do better than that.

MURRAY:  "If we let another year go by without reform, more and more families are going to lose their coverage and more and more businesses are going to collapse¹² under the growing burden of the cost of health insurance."

Republicans dropped a threat to block the Saturday procedural vote by demanding that the entire 2,000 page bill be read on the Senate floor.

Three centrist Democrats, Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Arkansas Democrat Blanche Lincoln have voiced concerns about aspects of the measure, but were expected to vote yes on the motion to proceed.

Independent Senator Joe Lieberman is expected to vote with Democrats to clear the bill for debate, but has threatened to side with Republicans to block a final vote still weeks away.

If Democrats get their 60 votes on Saturday, lawmakers could leave town claiming a key procedural victory, to return after the Thanksgiving holiday to begin the difficult process of amending¹³ the legislation, expected to last through much of December.

If the Senate approves a bill next month, Senate and House lawmakers would still have to negotiate a final bill both chambers¹⁴ would then have to approve, before President Barack Obama could sign legislation.

After a number of missed deadlines in recent months, the president has said he hopes to have a bill on his desk before his State of the Union Address in January.

1 democrat   

n.民主主义者，民主人士；民主党党员

参考例句：

• The Democrat and the Public criticized each other.民主党人和共和党人互相攻击。
• About two years later,he was defeated by Democrat Jimmy Carter.大约两年后，他被民主党人杰米卡特击败。

2 democrats   

n.民主主义者，民主人士( democrat的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The Democrats held a pep rally on Capitol Hill yesterday. 民主党昨天在国会山召开了竞选誓师大会。
• The democrats organize a filibuster in the senate. 民主党党员组织了阻挠议事。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 opposition   

n.反对，敌对

参考例句：

• The party leader is facing opposition in his own backyard.该党领袖在自己的党內遇到了反对。
• The police tried to break down the prisoner's opposition.警察设法制住了那个囚犯的反抗。

4 jack   

n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克

参考例句：

• I am looking for the headphone jack.我正在找寻头戴式耳机插孔。
• He lifted the car with a jack to change the flat tyre.他用千斤顶把车顶起来换下瘪轮胎。

5 chamber   

n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所

参考例句：

• For many,the dentist's surgery remains a torture chamber.对许多人来说，牙医的治疗室一直是间受刑室。
• The chamber was ablaze with light.会议厅里灯火辉煌。

6 harry   

vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼

参考例句：

• Today,people feel more hurried and harried.今天，人们感到更加忙碌和苦恼。
• Obama harried business by Healthcare Reform plan.奥巴马用医改掠夺了商界。

7 initially   

adv.最初，开始

参考例句：

• The ban was initially opposed by the US.这一禁令首先遭到美国的反对。
• Feathers initially developed from insect scales.羽毛最初由昆虫的翅瓣演化而来。

8 monstrous   

adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的

参考例句：

• The smoke began to whirl and grew into a monstrous column.浓烟开始盘旋上升，形成了一个巨大的烟柱。
• Your behaviour in class is monstrous!你在课堂上的行为真是丢人！

9 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。

10 savings   

n.存款，储蓄

参考例句：

• I can't afford the vacation,for it would eat up my savings.我度不起假，那样会把我的积蓄用光的。
• By this time he had used up all his savings.到这时，他的存款已全部用完。

11 premiums   

n.费用( premium的名词复数 )；保险费；额外费用；（商品定价、贷款利息等以外的）加价

参考例句：

• He paid premiums on his life insurance last year. 他去年付了人寿保险费。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Moves are afoot to increase car insurance premiums. 现正在酝酿提高汽车的保险费。 来自《简明英汉词典》

12 collapse   

vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷

参考例句：

• The country's economy is on the verge of collapse.国家的经济已到了崩溃的边缘。
• The engineer made a complete diagnosis of the bridge's collapse.工程师对桥的倒塌做了一次彻底的调查分析。

13 amending   

改良，修改，修订( amend的现在分词 )； 改良，修改，修订( amend的第三人称单数 )( amends的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Amending acts in 1933,1934, and 1935 attempted to help honest debtors rehabilitate themselves. 一九三三年，一九三四年和一九三五年通过的修正案是为了帮助诚实的债务人恢复自己的地位。
• Two ways were used about the error-amending of contour curve. 采用两种方法对凸轮轮廓曲线进行了修正。

14 chambers   

n.房间( chamber的名词复数 )；（议会的）议院；卧室；会议厅

参考例句：

• The body will be removed into one of the cold storage chambers. 尸体将被移到一个冷冻间里。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Mr Chambers's readable book concentrates on the middle passage: the time Ransome spent in Russia. Chambers先生的这本值得一看的书重点在中间：Ransome在俄国的那几年。 来自互联网