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“The ballooning costs of health care act as a hungry tapeworm on the American economy" is how Buffett put it in the six-paragraph news release
“醫療保健膨脹的成本就像一條饑餓的絳蟲蠶食著美國的經濟。”巴菲特在一條長達六段的新聞里如是說到，
that offered no blueprint but what Amazon founder Jeff Bezos called “talented experts, a beginner’s mind and a long-term orientation.”
盡管該報道并沒有透露任何計劃，亞馬遜創始人杰夫·貝佐斯還是評價到，“我們有本領高強的專家，有不變的初心，也有長期定位”。
You can see where this is going.
我們可以看出這件事情的走向。
Shop for a piece of furniture online and the seller explains why it can offer a quality sofa at a reasonable price by listing the half-dozen middlemen it’s cutting out:
網購家具時賣家會給你解釋他們如何通過剔除六家中間商來提供物美價廉的沙發的。對這些中間商他們是如數家珍：
retail warehouse, retail store, wholesaler warehouse, wholesaler showroom, export agent.
零售倉庫，零售店，批發倉庫，批發展廳，出口代理商。
It may not be possible to list the intermediaries milling about between a patient and a healer,
盡管我們可能無法列出盤桓在患者和醫生之間的所有中間商，
but David Cutler, a health economist at Harvard, made the striking calculation that administration accounts for about a quarter of the cost of health care in the U.S.—
但哈佛大學的衛生經濟學家大衛·卡特勒（David Cutler）還是得出了一個令人驚訝的計算結果：政府的醫療開銷在美國醫療保健費用中占了將近四分之一——
perhaps double the rate in the next-most-benighted system.
這一比例可以說是在腐敗程度上僅次于醫療的行業的兩倍。
He once pointed out that Duke University Hospital had 900 beds and 1,300 billing clerks.
他曾經指出，杜克大學醫院有900個床位，1,300個帳單文員。
None of this qualifies as news.
這些問題都已不新鮮。
What does is the prospect of a new sensibility addressing the mess.
真正值得讓人注意的是試圖解決這一混亂的新辦法到底有多大前景？
Bezos became the richest man in the world in no small part by exploiting and inventing technology, like “one click.”
貝佐斯能成為世界上最富有的人，在很大程度上都因歸功于“一鍵下單”（即亞馬遜）之類產品的開發和技術發明。
His approach is to undercut the competition at every turn—
他的辦法是抓住一切機會削弱對手的競爭力，
cutting prices so low that customers were reliably pleased, and vendors had no choice but to stock his shelves.
大幅降價讓客戶切實感到高興，同時讓供應商除了給他供貨別無選擇。
Many of the company’s half-million employees work among those shelves at the “fulfillment centers” all across the U.S. where boxes are packed and shipped.
該公司五十萬員工,其中有很多人都在這些崗位上工作，在美國各地的“裝貨中心”進行包裝和運輸。
A warehouse worker might make $15 an hour, better than retail but not enough to make anyone rich,
倉庫員工每小時可能掙15美元，雖然比零售商好點，但也談不上富有，
especially after taxes and health-insurance premiums, which have been rising faster than wages.
特別是扣了稅和醫療保險費以后，而這兩項的費用上漲的速度比工資要快。
If the triad of Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase can find a way to bring sense to health care,
如果亞馬遜，伯克希爾·哈撒韋和摩根大通的三位一體有辦法讓醫療保健變得合理，
the savings will accrue first for those three companies, which are not acting out of altruism.
收益首先惠及的是這三家公司，這就不再是利他主義了。
But sometimes business interests align with human ones.
然而，也有商業利益與人的利益相吻合的情況。
Every dollar matters to an hourly worker,
對小時工來說，每一美元都很重要，
and when the savings from a better health care system reach the worker and when the worker reaches a doctor without having to run a gauntlet
當醫療保健系統的存款能夠惠及他們，當他們不必再為就醫遭受指責，
the vaunted, disruptive efficiency of tech will have produced a common good.
效率破壞力十足還被大肆吹噓的技術就算是造福萬民了。
