【推荐1】Unhealthy health care bills, long emergency-room waits and inability to find a primary care   physician just scratch the surface of the problems that patients face daily.

Primary care should be the backbone of any health care system. Countries with appropriate primary care resources score highly when it comes to health outcomes and costs. The U.S. takes the opposite approach by emphasizing the specialists rather than the primary care physician.

A recent study analyzed the providers who treat Medicare Beneficiaries(老年医保受惠人）. The startling finding was that the average Medicare patient saw a total of seven doctors --- two primary care physicians and five specialists --- in a given year. Contrary to popular belief, the more physicians taking care of you don't guarantee better care. Actually increasing breakup of care results in a corresponding rise in costs and medical errors.

How did we let primary care slip so far? The key is how doctors are paid. Most physicians are paid whenever they perform a medical service. The more a physician does, regardless of quality or outcome, the better he's reimbursed（ 返还费用）. Moreover, the amount of a physician receives leans heavily toward medical or surgical procedures. A specialist who performs a procedure in a 30-minute visit can be paid three times more than a primary care physician using that same 30 minutes to discuss a patient's disease. Combine this fact with annual government threats to indiscriminately cut reimbursements, physicians are faced with no choice but to increase quantity to boost income.

Primary care physicians who refuse to compromise quality are either driven out of business or to cash-only practices, further contributing to the decline of primary care.

Medical students are not blind to this scenario. They see how heavily the reimbursement deck is stacked against primary care. The recent numbers show that since 1997, newly graduated U.S. medical students who choose primary care as a career have declined by 50%. This trend results in emergency rooms being overwhelmed with patients without regular doctors.

How do we fix this problem?

It starts with reforming the physician reimbursement system. Remove the pressure for primary care physicians to squeeze in more patients per hour, and reward them for optimally managing their diseases and practicing evidence-based medicine. Make primary care more attractive food to medical students by forgiving students loans for those who choose primary care as a career and harmonizing the marked difference between specialist and primary care physician salaries.

We’re at the point where primary care is needed more than ever. Within a few years, the first wave of 76 million Baby Boomers will become qualified for Medicare. Patients older than 85, who need chronic care most, will rise by 50% this decade.

Who will be there to treat   them？

【推荐2】Ancient Rome was one of the world’s most powerful empires more than 2,000 years ago. The Romans’ Ideas about roads, laws, government and buildings still influence us today. Italy is shaped like a boot.

The Colosseum (角斗场) in Rome was built during the time of the Roman Empire, in the first century A.D.     1    . It is a popular tourist attraction today.

Italy is well-known for its designers, who create cars, handbags, clothes, shoes and other items that are in demand for their style and fine workmanship.

Today, the economy of Italy is stronger than in the past.     2    . Today, manufacturing and tourism are the main sources of income. There are some big companies, but Italy has many smaller companies, too.     3    . The southern part does not offer as many manufacturing jobs, so it is not as prosperous.

Italy is a member of the European Union, a group of countries that join together for better trade. The currency, or money, they use is called the “euro”.

Food and eating good meals are important to Italians.     4    . Popular foods include pasta, risotto, minestrone and pizza. McDonald’s is also popular there.

Many families still eat their main meal in the middle of the day.     5    . Families spend a lot of time together.

【推荐2】Britain has a complete network of public libraries, administered by local library authorities: These libraries have a’ total collection of some 115 million books.

About one-third of the total population are members of public libraries. This leading and reference library service is, with some limitations, free.

Public libraries not only lend books, music scores, and records, but also provide libraries for children, patients in hospital and prisoners in jails, among others. They engage in many other kinds of activities as well, such as organizing play readings, lectures, films shows and musical circles. They also help to promote and develop adult education.

The greatest and most famous library in Britain is that of the British Museum (now part of the British Library created in 1973), which possesses over six million books. A copy of every book, magazines, newspaper, etc. , published in Great Britain must be sent to the British Museum. The Reading Room of the Museum is famous for the number of scholars and notables who have studied in it. The British Museum Library is not a lending library.

The second best-known library in Britain is the Boldeian Library at Oxford (over two million volumes). The National Library of Scotland (about two million volumes) and the National Library of Wales (more than one and a quarter million volumes) are also famous, and may claim a copy of every new work published in Britain. There is also a National Library for the Blind, with over three hundred thousand volumes in a specially embossed type.

【推荐3】You can deposit money in a building society and obtain yearly interest at a certain rate.You can also borrow money from a building society. What, then, is difference between a bank and a building society? In fact, a building society does not seem to be very different from a savings bank.Many people regularly save money by depositing small amounts monthly in a building society, just as other people regularly save money by depositing small amounts monthly in a savings bank. Some people deposit large amounts in a building society as an investment. They receive higher interest than they would receive from a savings bank; their money can be invested either in building society shares or in loans to the society.

These societies are controlled by law, but they are not government organizations. They were originally started to enable people to buy houses.One of their main purposes is to provide loans for buying or building houses. Many people prefer buying a house to paying rent, but some of them cannot afford to buy a house.To cover the cost they borrow the money from a building society. The loan plus the interest is paid back in monthly amounts over an agreed number of years. Probably the payments made in this way are no more than the rent of a rented house. But at the end of the stated period, when the debt is paid, the borrower becomes the owner of the house. To protect the building society from “bad debts” he must sign a statement to say that the house belongs to the society until the debt is paid.

A building society invests the savings of its shareholders in houses and property. Unlike a bank, it does not serve as a general clearing house (清算所) for every kind of exchange or business operation. Its activities are limited compared with those of a bank.

【推荐1】Before the end of the year, employees at Ubiquitous Energy, a company in Redwood City, Calif, will gather in a window-lined conference room to stare toward the future. That’s because their new glass windows will offer more than an amazing view of the North California landscape. They will also be able to power the company’s lights, computers and air conditioners.

Several years in the making, Ubiquitous’ energy-producing glass is a remarkable technological achievement. Its power lies in the layers of organic polymers (聚合物) between sheets of glass. As light enters the window,the flow of electrons between the polymer layers creates an electric current, which is then collected by tiny wires in the glass.

“It’s sort of like a transparent computer display run in reverse (反过来),” says Veeral Hardev, director of business development at Ubiquitous Energy. “Instead of electricity being shuttled to different points in a display to light them up, light is producing electricity to be shuttled out of different points in the window.”

Right now the windows produce about a third as much electricity from a given amount of sunlight as the typical solar cells used in roof panels (板).These windows, about half as transparent as ordinary glass, don’t work as well as transparent ones. Hardev says the company is likely to improve the transparency significantly. As for the lower output of electricity, he notes that windows can cover a much greater surface area than a roof, so numerous windows will produce a surprisingly larger amount of electricity than the production from a rooftop full of higher-efficiency solar panels. “You could do both.” says Hardev. “But you’ll get more from the windows. The biggest challenge, he adds, is increasing the windows from less than two square feet currently to about 50 square feet.”

【推荐2】Food likes and dislikes vary from culture to culture. Canadians are generally considered to be conservative (保守的) in their food tastes, but actually, the ability to enjoy different kinds of foods is highly regarded in Canada. A Canadian family may eat Italian food one night, Chinese food the next, and then Greek or Japanese food. Eating in Canada will provide you a good chance to enjoy various foods and get in touch with different cultures. Canadians often invite people to dinner. It’s customary to arrive on time for a dinner party and to bring along a bottle of wine or a small gift, such as flowers or candy. Food is not brought unless especially asked for by the host. Some meals may include appetizers（开胃菜）, soup or salad before the main course. A typical main course includes meat or fish, potatoes or rice, or one or two vegetables. Dessert is usually served with coffee or tea at the end of the meal.

To show that you enjoy a meal, it is polite to praise the quality of the food. Be sure to accept a second helping if you like the food and are not full. But in some other countries, it is polite to refuse up to three times before accepting a second helping.