The nation needs to get serious about reducing needless suffering. NCI should commit itself to and fund research aimed at improving symptom control and palliative care. NCI also could designate “centers of excellence” among the cancer centers it recognizes. To get that designation, centers would deliver innovative, top-quality palliative care to all segments of the populations the centers serve; train professionals in medicine, nursing, psychology, social work, and other disciplines to provide palliative care; and conduct research.

    Insurance coverage for palliative and hospice care also contributes to the problem by forcing people to choose between active treatment or hospice care. This “either/or” approach does not readily allow these two types of essential care to be integrated. The Medicare hospice benefit is designed specially for people in the final stages of illness and allows enrollment only if patients are expected to survive six months or less. The benefit excludes patients from seeking both palliative care and potentially life-extending treatment.

    That makes hospice enrollment an obvious deterrent for many patients. And hospices, which may have the most skilled practitioners and the most experience in administering palliative care, cannot offer their services to people who could really benefit but still are pursuing active treatment.

    Death is inevitable, but severe suffering is not. To offer hope for a long life of the highest possible quality and to deliver the best quality cancer care from diagnosis to death, our public institutions need to move towards policies that value and promote palliative care.  (449 words)

    Notes: nausea 恶心；single-minded 一心一意的；palliative 减轻的，缓解的；palliative care 姑息治疗；commit oneself to 承担去做…；insurance coverage保险复盖范围； hospice (晚期病人)收容所，收容计划；Medicare [美] 老年医疗保健制度 （指政府为65岁以上老人设置的医疗费减免制度）；benefit保险金；deterrent 威慑力量；制止因素；administer给予；实施，执行。

1. According to the first paragraph, what is the author’s attitude towards the good news?

  A. He believes that dramatic results have been made in cancer research.
  B. He has mixed feelings about the rapid decline in deaths from cancer.
  C. He deems that a large number of cancer patients still die every year.
  D. He thinks many by-effects brought by cancer treatments are severe.

2. It can be learned from the text that palliative care is intended to __________.

  A. raise patients’ survival rates                       B. extend patients’ life spans
  C. improve patients’ quality of life                    D. provide patients with health insurance