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Mr Abe appears to be planning sweeping changes to put the welfare state on a firmer footing. “There will be an overall social-security reform, including health and medicine, pension and others,” he says. “We are trying to create a society and community where people can remain healthy and active…and find meaning in staying alive and living long.”

（一）内容总结：

安倍先生一直雄心勃勃想要搞一场彻底的改变，内容覆盖生命健康、医药、退休金，把日本这个福利国家建立在一个更稳固的基础上。日本健康活跃地安度晚年，并且找得到人生的意义。

（二）实用表达：

①sweeping changes:大刀阔斧的改革；这个可以说很好用了，sweep本身由于有“扫地；席卷”的意思，sweeping作为形容词，很容易就联想到表示“广泛的，深刻的”意思。类似的还有：

sweeping changes/ cuts/ reforms 彻底的改革

②扩展：sweeping statement/generalization 一概而论的看法（带贬义）

③welfare state：(英国等国的)福利国家(制度) ：In Britain and some other countries, the welfare state is a system in which the government provides free social services such as health and education and gives money to people when they are unable to work, for example because they are old, unemployed, or sick。

这个可以跟下文的social security一起理解：

 ④Social security is a system under which a government pays money regularly to certain groups of people, for example the sick, the unemployed, or those with no other income. 

⑤put/place something on a …… footing 把……建立在……之上

我们在说建立在……的基础上时，很容易想到foundation，basis，这个footing用的相对较少，但是这个也很好用，马上能联想到其常见意思“脚”，引申出来“基础”的意思。

造句： The new law puts women on an equal legal footing with men. 这条新的法律把妇女放在和男人平等的法律地位上。

⑥ a society and community 押尾韵

⑦find meaning in staying alive and  living long：这里的find meaning in虽然简单，但是很好用：

find meaning in life

find meaning and joy in their employment an life/ Phenomenal  English

Yet in practice Mr Abe is being cautious. Even after the retirement age increases, it will still be lower than in many other rich countries. Moreover, the current system discourages those over 65 from working more than part-time since their pension is reduced if their income from it and their salary exceeds 460,000 yen ($4,039) a month. It is not clear whether this will change. The government has modified but not eliminated a tax quirk that discourages married women from earning more than a relatively lowly amount. By the same token, the share of medical expenses that patients must pay under the public health-care system falls as they get older, imposing a big burden on the state. There are various ways the government could reduce its health-care bill, including increasing premiums for the public insurance scheme, raising patients’ co-payments for treatments and excluding some expensive procedures from the scheme.

（一）内容总结：

承接前文，虽然安倍雄心勃勃，然而事实上他还是很谨慎，尽管日本的退休年龄即使增加了，也赶不上其他的富裕国家。而且，现在日本的体系既不利于超过65岁的人做除了兼职工作以外的事情，因为他们的工作收入或者工资超过460,000日元，他们的退休金就会减少。此外，政府也修正（但没有消除）了一个税收怪癖，这个怪政策基本让女性只能挣相对少的钱。同样地，现有医疗体系下，病人必须支付的医疗份额也随着他们年龄的增长而减少，这无疑给国家财政造成了更大的负担。当然也有很多办法减轻政府的负担，比如增加保险费呀，增加分摊付款额呀，以及不把一些昂贵的检查手续纳入其中呀。

（二）实用表达：

①discourage……from 表示劝阻，阻止，这个结构我捡到了认识，但是用得少，我平时表达阻碍都只会有prevent。

造句：My sore throat discourages me from reading aloud.(嗓子疼阻碍我大声朗读)。

② modified but not eliminated 押尾韵，可以总结出句型：

the XX has modified but not eliminated the policy that ……

eg. The university has modified but not eliminated the policy that discourage students from ordering takeaways.（最近某高校阻止学生点外卖）。

③a tax quirk:这个东西比较难理解，大家可以根据这个图理解（来自同组Ada）：

这说了个啥事情呢？简单来说是这样的：日本政府制定了一个政策，就是太太挣得钱少于某个数，他丈夫就能获得一定的税收减免，所以这些太太就只能做一些相对低收入的工作，不然钱挣得还没有上的税多。这个政策就比较诡异了，不努力干活还挣得多一点，所以怪呀！

④By the same token

token本来指的是代币，如上图，by the same token是一个习语，意思是“同样地，由于同样的原因”

可以用在写作中，引出下文。

此外，这个词还有比较好用的搭配，比如：

a token of your gratitude/respect/appreciation

Please accept this gift as a small token of our appreciation.

区区薄礼，略表谢意，还请笑纳。

⑤impose a XX burden on 对……强行施加了负担，impose用的很好了，我就只会用put

造句：

Peer pressure imposes a big burden on my young fragile heart.（同龄人太优秀，小心灵很受伤）。

（三）重难点分析：

Moreover, the current system discourages those over 65 from working more than part-time since their pension is reduced if their income from it and their salary exceeds 460,000 yen ($4,039) a month.

我觉得这个比较难，因为discourage from 后面又加了一个more than，字面意思理解为：

当今的系统阻碍了 65岁以上的人工作超过兼职范围，因为这样他们的退休金会减少，其实就是表示他们只能做兼职啦。

There are various ways the government could reduce its health-care bill, including……

提炼句型：There are various ways the XX could do XX,including……用于写解决方案。

including increasing premiums for the public insurance scheme, raising patients’ co-payments for treatments and excluding some expensive procedures from the scheme.

这个意思可能不好懂，我的理解是，日本为了减轻国家财政负担，想了几个招，一是医保每年多交点，二是医保报销的时候，自费的那部分费用增加，防止某些人滥用医保，三是一些贵的检查从医保中划出，比如你想去做个超贵的CT，医保不给报了。