2020年经济学人 美国黑人的医疗状况不容乐观(3)

The advances of the civil-rights period led to a big improvement in black health, which by the mid-70s had levelled off. Barack Obama's Affordable¹ Care Act, which followed the example of Medicaid in trying to improve the health care of all poor Americans, can be viewed as the third major effort to correct the disparity. The 20m Americans who received health insurance under the act were likeliest to be black or Latino. Yet the fury this elicited² among some whites-fuelled by a vague feeling that their tax dollars were being squandered³ on the undeserving-helped get Donald Trump⁴ elected. Having failed to repeal⁵ the act, as he had promised to, the president has since sought to shrink it through technlcal changes.

民权的推进导致黑人健康状况大为改善，到70年代中期已经趋于平稳。贝拉克·奥巴马提出的平价医疗法案，延续了医疗补助计划，试图改善所有贫困的美国人的医疗保障。这一法案可以被视为纠正差距的第三大努力。根据该法案获得医疗保险的2000万美国人最有可能是黑人或拉丁裔。然而，一些白人燃起了怒火，他们模糊地感觉到，自己的税收被浪费在不值得的东西上，这有助于唐纳德·特朗普当选。由于未能像他所承诺的那样废除该法案，总统后来试图通过技术变革来减小法案。

Some dare hope the pandemic may lead to a fourth push to close the gap. "I'm always optimistic-especially when there are trillions of dollars circulating," said Muriel Bowser, Washington's mayor. African-Americans' electoral heft might help. Even Mr Trump has been courting their votes; Joe Biden's health-care plan was aimed at blacks even before the pandemic struck.

一些人大胆地希望，这次疫情可能导致第四次推动缩小差距的努力。华盛顿市长穆里尔·鲍泽说：“我一直都很乐观，特别是当还有数万亿美元在流通的时候。非裔美国人的选举影响力可能会有所帮助。就连特朗普先生也在争取他们的选票；甚至在疫情爆发之前，拜登的医疗计划就针对黑人。

Covid-19 has also made dear that such an intervention⁶ should not be considered ideological⁷. Perhaps government action is not the best way to raise blacks economically, as conservatives argue; but their poor health cannot be improved otherwise. The virus afflicts⁸ the industrious⁹ and work-shy alike-a point made by Mr Trump's trim African-American surgeon-general, Jerome Adams, when he acknowledged his own asthma¹⁰, high blood pressure and heart disease. Indeed the most industrious blacks-such as Bertina's son, labouring in harm's way at Costco-are likeliest to expose themselves and succumb¹¹ to the virus. Poor black health is a disincentive to work that work alone cannot fix.

新冠肺炎也为我们指明，这种干预不应被视为意识形态干预。就如保守派主张的那样，也许政府的行动并不是在经济上提升黑人地位的最佳途径，但是他们的健康状况却无法得到改善。这种病毒同样折磨着勤劳和懒惰的人——这是特朗普的非洲裔美国外科医生总干事杰罗姆·亚当斯在承认自己患有哮喘、高血压和心脏病时提出的观点。事实上，大多数勤劳的黑人——比如伯蒂娜的儿子就在好市多工作并身处危险中——最有可能暴露在病毒之下，并屈服于病毒。黑人健康状况差是工作的障碍，光靠工作是解决不了的。

It only remains¹² to be seen, to revert¹³ to Du Bois's difficult problem, whether a majority of Americans can be mobilised behind the issue. That must surely be possible, after the vulnerability of millions has been so cruelly exposed. If not now, indeed, when?

至于杜博伊斯的难题，是否能动员大多数美国人支持这一问题，我们只能拭目以待。在数百万人残酷地暴露在病毒中且易感病毒之后，这肯定是可能的。如果现在不去改变，那又在什么时候呢？

1 affordable   

adj.支付得起的，不太昂贵的

参考例句：

• The rent for the four-roomed house is affordable.四居室房屋的房租付得起。
• There are few affordable apartments in big cities.在大城市中没有几所公寓是便宜的。

2 elicited   

引出，探出( elicit的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Threats to reinstate the tax elicited jeer from the Opposition. 恢复此项征税的威胁引起了反对党的嘲笑。
• The comedian's joke elicited applause and laughter from the audience. 那位滑稽演员的笑话博得观众的掌声和笑声。

3 squandered   

v.（指钱，财产等）浪费，乱花( squander的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He squandered all his money on gambling. 他把自己所有的钱都糟蹋在赌博上了。
• She felt as indignant as if her own money had been squandered. 她心里十分生气，好像是她自己的钱给浪费掉了似的。 来自飘（部分）

4 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

5 repeal   

n.废止，撤消；v.废止，撤消

参考例句：

• He plans to repeal a number of current policies.他计划废除一些当前的政策。
• He has made out a strong case for the repeal of the law.他提出强有力的理由，赞成废除该法令。

6 intervention   

n.介入，干涉，干预

参考例句：

• The government's intervention in this dispute will not help.政府对这场争论的干预不会起作用。
• Many people felt he would be hostile to the idea of foreign intervention.许多人觉得他会反对外来干预。

7 ideological   

a.意识形态的

参考例句：

• He always tries to link his study with his ideological problems. 他总是把学习和自己的思想问题联系起来。
• He helped me enormously with advice on how to do ideological work. 他告诉我怎样做思想工作，对我有很大帮助。

8 afflicts   

使受痛苦，折磨( afflict的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Level 3-Afflicts a target with the Curse of the Silent. 三级-用静默诅咒折磨一个目标。
• Level 1-Afflicts a target with the Curse of the Silent. 一级-用静默诅咒折磨一个目标。

9 industrious   

adj.勤劳的，刻苦的，奋发的

参考例句：

• If the tiller is industrious,the farmland is productive.人勤地不懒。
• She was an industrious and willing worker.她是个勤劳肯干的员工。

10 asthma   

n.气喘病，哮喘病

参考例句：

• I think he's having an asthma attack.我想他现在是哮喘病发作了。
• Its presence in allergic asthma is well known.它在过敏性气喘中的存在是大家很熟悉的。

11 succumb   

v.屈服，屈从；死

参考例句：

• They will never succumb to the enemies.他们决不向敌人屈服。
• Will business leaders succumb to these ideas?商业领袖们会被这些观点折服吗？

12 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

13 revert   

v.恢复，复归，回到

参考例句：

• Let us revert to the earlier part of the chapter.让我们回到本章的前面部分。
• Shall we revert to the matter we talked about yesterday?我们接着昨天谈过的问题谈，好吗？