Welcome to the White House Conference on Aging, everybody. And please give Vicki a big round of applause for the outstanding work she's doing to help women and families prepare for retirement. 欢迎各位参加白宫老龄问题会议。请大家为维基鼓掌，感谢她为帮助女性和家庭做好退休准备所做的杰出工作。
I want to thank the members of Congress who are here, those in my administration who've been working on this issue. I want to especially point out one of my favorite former members of Congress, a legend who's here today -- John Dingell. John, thank you. 我要感谢出席今天会议的国会议员们，以及本届政府中一直致力于这一议题的同仁们。我要特别提到我最敬佩的前国会议员之一，一位今天在座的传奇人物——约翰·丁格尔。约翰，谢谢你。
John was elected to Congress when he was just 29 -- an over-achiever. Ten years later, he presided over the House chamber for the vote to pass Medicare into law -- an achievement for which he and his father can take some credit. Last week, John turned 89 -- so we want to wish John a happy birthday. He's been a retiree for six months, but he's keeping busy -- just check out his Twitter feed if you don't believe me. So he's still got some pretty strong opinions. 约翰29岁就当选为国会议员——真是个出类拔萃的人。十年后，他主持众议院会议厅投票，推动《医疗保险法》成为法律——这一成就是他和他父亲都可以引以为豪的。上周，约翰迎来了89岁生日——让我们祝约翰生日快乐。他已经退休六个月了，但依然忙个不停——不信你去看看他的推特账号就知道了。所以他的观点还是相当犀利的。
It is wonderful to be here with all of you. Many of you have devoted your careers to advocating for older Americans. You understand the whole terrain -- not just the challenges, but also the opportunities; not only the questions we're asking today but the questions that we have to start thinking about for tomorrow. And because this conference takes place just once a decade, we've got to make it count. 很高兴能和大家相聚在这里。你们中的许多人毕生都在为美国老年人的权益奔走呼号。你们深谙这一领域的方方面面——不仅了解挑战，也看到了机遇；不仅在思考今天的问题，也在为未来的问题未雨绸缪。由于这个会议每十年才举办一次，我们必须让它产生实效。
So one of the best measures of a country is how it treats its older citizens. And by that measure, the United States has a lot to be proud of. Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security are some of our greatest triumphs as a nation. When Social Security was signed into law, far too many seniors were living in poverty. When Medicare was created, only a little more than half of all seniors had some form of insurance. Before Medicaid came along, families often had no help paying for nursing home costs. 衡量一个国家的标准之一，就是它如何对待老年公民。以此衡量，美国有很多值得骄傲的地方。医疗保险、医疗补助和社会保障是我们国家最伟大的成就之一。《社会保障法》签署生效时，有太多老年人生活在贫困之中。医疗保险制度创立时，只有略多于一半的老年人拥有某种形式的保险。在医疗补助制度出现之前，家庭往往无力支付养老院的费用。
Today, the number of seniors in poverty has fallen dramatically. Every American over 65 has access to affordable health care. And, by the way, since the Affordable Care Act was signed into law, the uninsured rate for all Americans has fallen by about one-third. Just thought I'd mention that. 如今，老年人贫困人数已大幅下降。每一位65岁以上的美国人都能享受到负担得起的医疗服务。顺便说一句，自从《平价医疗法案》签署成为法律以来，所有美国人的未参保率下降了约三分之一。我只是提一下而已。
Together we declared that every citizen of this country deserves a basic measure of security and dignity. That choice saved millions upon millions of our people from poverty, allowed them to live longer and better lives. So we got to be proud of that. These American endeavors didn't just make our country better, it reaffirmed our greatness as a country. And it's hard to find a single American whose life hasn't been enriched by these covenants in some fashion. 我们共同宣告，这个国家的每一位公民都理应享有基本的安全和尊严。这一选择使数以百万计的人民摆脱了贫困，让他们活得更长寿、更美好。我们应当为此感到自豪。这些美国式的努力不仅让我们的国家变得更好，更彰显了我们作为一个国家的伟大。很难找到一个美国人的生活没有以某种方式因这些保障制度而变得更加富足。
My grandmother was a fiercely independent woman. She helped to raise me. She didn't have a college degree. She worked her way up, working on bomber assembly lines -- Rosie the Riveter -- during the war, and then went on, got a job as a secretary and then kept on working her way up until she was vice president of a local bank. And after my grandfather died, she chose to live independently. And Medicare and Social Security allowed her to make that choice. 我的祖母是一位非常独立的女性。她一手把我带大。她没有大学学位。她从底层做起，二战期间在轰炸机装配线上工作——就像"铆工罗西"那样——后来她找到了一份秘书的工作，然后一路晋升，直到成为一家地方银行的副总裁。我祖父去世后，她选择了独立生活。正是医疗保险和社会保障让她能够做出这样的选择。
She had the confidence that, having worked hard, played by the rules, she was rewarded with a safe foundation for retirement and she could not fall through those cracks. That was a promise this country made to her and all its citizens. And as a grateful grandson -- who happens to be President -- that is a promise I'm going to make sure we're going to keep for future generations. We've got to make sure that it's there for people who are working today. 她有这样的信心：只要努力工作、遵守规则，就能获得安稳的退休保障，就不会跌入生活的深渊。这是这个国家对她和所有公民做出的承诺。作为一个心怀感激的孙子——同时也是美国总统——我保证，我们将为子孙后代守住这一承诺。我们必须确保，今天还在工作的人们将来也能享受到这些福利。
But we're going to have work for it. We have to work to do more to ensure that every older American has the resources and the support that they need to thrive. That challenge -- protecting our seniors, dealing with the rising costs of an aging generation, ensuring we have enough home care workers looking out for our family members -- maximizing the contributions that older Americans can make to our country -- these challenges are just becoming more urgent. 但这需要我们付出努力。我们必须再接再厉，确保每一位美国老年人都拥有安享晚年所需的资源和支持。这一挑战——保护我们的老年人、应对人口老龄化带来的成本上升、确保有足够的家庭护理人员照顾我们的家人——以及充分发挥美国老年人对国家的贡献——这些挑战正变得日益紧迫。
And here's why. When we won World War II, everyone came home and had babies. I mean, not literally, everyone, but a lot of people had babies. And now, each and every day, almost 10,000 of those babies turn 65 years old. So more than 250,000 Americans turn 65 every month. They're living longer and they're living healthier. We're seeing people break athletic records in their 60s. 原因就在这里。二战胜利后，大家都回家生孩子了。我的意思不是说每个人都生了，但确实很多人生了孩子。如今，每一天都有近一万名那一代出生的婴儿年满65岁。每个月有超过25万美国人年满65岁。他们的寿命更长，身体也更健康。我们看到有人在60多岁时还能打破运动纪录。
Diana Nyad is here today, by the way. You do not want to race her in anything. Arguably the toughest justice on the Supreme Court is the oldest -- Ruth Bader Ginsburg -- also known as the Notorious R.B.G. She's tough. 顺便说一句，戴安娜·奈德今天也在座。跟她比什么都别比赛跑。可以说，最高法院最硬朗的大法官是年纪最大的那位——露丝·巴德·金斯伯格——也就是大名鼎鼎的"声名狼藉的RBG"。她可厉害着呢。
In just about every field, Americans who once might have been dismissed as out of touch or past their primes are making vital contributions in every field. And all of us, as a consequence, are able to raise our own ambitions about what we hope to achieve in our golden years. And since I'm living out dog years here in the presidency -- this is something I'm paying a lot of attention to. Look at this hair. Although I do have hair. Crowley was laughing a little bit too much over here. 几乎在每一个领域，那些曾经可能被认为脱离时代或过了巅峰期的美国人，如今都在各行各业做出重要贡献。因此，我们所有人都能对自己的晚年有更高的期望。既然我在总统任上已经熬得像过了狗年一样——这件事我可是深有体会。看看我的头发就知道了。不过好歹我还有头发。克劳利在那边笑得有点太夸张了。
So since these golden years are coming pretty fast, I want to make sure that we briefly focus on what we've done to strengthen already Medicare, and take a longer look at what we have to do to strengthen retirement even more. 既然黄金年景来得这么快，我想确保我们简要回顾一下我们在加强医疗保险方面已经做了哪些工作，然后再深入探讨我们还需要做些什么来进一步巩固退休保障。
Now, we're often told that Medicare and Social Security are in crisis. We hear that all the time. And usually, that's used as an excuse to try to cut spending on those bedrock programs. But here's the truth. Medicare and Social Security are not in crisis, nor have they kept us from cutting our deficits by two-thirds since I took office. Both programs are facing challenges because of the demographic trends I just talked about. And for Medicare, that means we've got to keep slowing the growth of health care costs, and keep building on the progress we've already made in the past few years. 现在，我们经常听到有人说医疗保险和社会保障陷入了危机。这种话我们听多了。而通常，这被当作削减这些基础项目开支的借口。但事实是，医疗保险和社会保障并没有陷入危机，它们也没有妨碍我们在任内将赤字减少了三分之二。由于我刚才谈到的人口结构趋势，这两个项目确实面临挑战。就医疗保险而言，这意味着我们必须继续减缓医疗成本的增长，并在过去几年取得的进展基础上继续推进。
Since I signed the Affordable Care Act -- also known as Obamacare -- since we signed the ACA into law, we've extended the life of the Medicare Trust Fund by 13 years. We're moving Medicare towards payment models that require quality of care instead of quantity of care as the measure of what you get paid, creating a different set of incentives. And that's something that will keep older Americans healthy and Medicare healthy as well. What's more, this law has saved over 9 million people on Medicare currently more than $15 billion on their prescriptions. 自我签署《平价医疗法案》——也就是奥巴马医改——以来，我们将医疗保险信托基金的存续期延长了13年。我们正在推动医疗保险从按量付费转向按质付费的支付模式，建立一套不同的激励机制。这将使美国老年人更健康，也让医疗保险制度更健康。更重要的是，这项法律目前已为900多万参保者节省了超过150亿美元的处方药费用。
Now, that doesn't get a lot of notice, but I want everybody to understand. Built into the Affordable Care Act, 9 million seniors have gotten significant discounts on their prescription drugs. They don't always know that it's because of Obamacare, but that's why they've been paying cheaper drug prices. It's also given nearly 40 million people on Medicare free preventive health services. And we've expanded the options for home- and community-based services offered by Medicaid, which means that more older Americans are able to make the same choice that my grandmother did and live independently. 这件事并没有得到太多关注，但我希望每个人都明白。在《平价医疗法案》的框架内，900万老年人在处方药方面获得了大幅折扣。他们并不总是知道这是因为奥巴马医改，但这就是他们药费下降的原因。这项法律还为近4000万参保者提供了免费的预防性医疗服务。我们还扩大了医疗补助提供的居家和社区服务的选择范围，这意味着更多美国老年人能够像我祖母那样选择独立生活。
So those are some areas we've made progress. And Sylvia Burwell, who's here, our Secretary of Health and Human Services, I'm sure at some point during this conference will be talking about additional steps that we need to be taking to further improve a delivery system. 这些是我们已经取得进展的一些领域。在座的卫生与公众服务部部长西尔维娅·伯韦尔，我相信在本次会议期间，她会谈到我们需要采取的更多措施，以进一步完善医疗服务体系。
And understand, the goal here is not to cut back on services. The goal is to make sure that you're getting more of the services that you need, less of the services you don't, so you've got more money left over to do even more stuff that you need to keep you healthy and active and thriving. Because we have too much waste in the system that's not benefiting patients, but oftentimes just has to do with a really inefficient system or, in some cases, works really well for providers but doesn't work well for the consumer. 要明白，我们的目标不是削减服务。我们的目标是确保你们得到更多需要的服务，减少不需要的服务，这样你们就有更多的钱去做更多保持健康、积极和充实生活所需的事情。因为我们的医疗体系中存在太多浪费，这些浪费并没有惠及患者，很多时候只是因为系统效率实在太低，或者在某些情况下，对医疗服务提供者有利，但对消费者不利。
Now, even as we're dealing with the health care side, we also know that too many older Americans leave the workforce without having saved enough for a dignified retirement. And it's not as if they haven't tried -- Vicki touched on this issue. There are a lot of folks out here who work really, really hard, but at the end of the day just still don't have enough of a nest egg. In today's economy, preparing for retirement has gotten tougher. 现在，即使我们在解决医疗保健方面的问题，我们也知道，太多美国老年人退休时没有存够钱来维持有尊严的退休生活。这并不是因为他们没有努力过——维基也提到了这个问题。很多人非常非常努力地工作，但到头来还是没有足够的积蓄。在当今的经济环境下，为退休做准备变得更加困难。
First of all, most workers don't have a traditional pension -- what we used to understand as a defined benefit pension where you were guaranteed a certain amount every year once you retired. A Social Security check on its own oftentimes is not enough. 首先，大多数劳动者没有传统的养老金——也就是我们过去理解的固定收益养老金，退休后每年都能拿到一笔固定的钱。光靠社会保障金往往是不够的。
And even though, as a consequence of some of the steps that we took, we pulled ourselves out of a terrible financial crisis and the stock market has now doubled since I took office -- which means that it's replenished the 401(k)s for millions of families -- so that's been important for millions of families across the country, but a lot of people don't have any kind of retirement account at all. 尽管由于我们采取的一些措施，我们走出了严重的金融危机，自我上任以来股市已经翻了一番——这意味着数百万家庭的401(k)退休账户得到了补充——这对全国数百万家庭来说很重要，但仍有很多人根本没有任何形式的退休账户。
So we're going to have to work hard to deal with these issues. Number one, we have to keep Social Security strong, protecting its future solvency. And I think there are ways, creative ways that people are talking about to protect its future solvency, but also strengthen retirement security for our most vulnerable neighbors. So that's step number one. 因此，我们必须努力解决这些问题。第一，我们必须保持社会保障的强劲，保护其未来的偿付能力。我认为，人们正在讨论的一些创新方法，既能保护其未来偿付能力，又能加强我们最脆弱群体的退休保障。这是第一步。
Step number two -- for Americans who are doing the hard work of saving for retirement, let's make sure that they get a fair deal. Earlier this year, I announced new steps we're taking to protect Americans by cracking down on conflicts of interest in retirement advice. The goal here is to put an end to Wall Street brokers who benefit from backdoor payments or hidden fees at the expense of their clients. If they are advising you on how to save your money, they should be looking out for you -- not for somebody who's selling a product that may not be best for you. 第二步——对于那些正在为退休努力储蓄的美国人，我们要确保他们得到公平的待遇。今年早些时候，我宣布了新的措施，通过打击退休建议中的利益冲突来保护美国民众。我们的目标是杜绝华尔街经纪人利用幕后回扣或隐性费用损害客户利益的行为。如果他们在给你理财建议，就应该为你着想——而不是为那些可能在推销并不适合你的产品的人着想。
And for the many brokers out there who are doing the right thing, this rule levels the playing field for them and their customers. The notion here is, is we want to make sure responsibility is rewarded and not exploited. So there's a consumer protection element to this whole thing. 对于许多诚实守信的经纪人来说，这项规定为他们和他们的客户创造了公平的竞争环境。我们的理念是，要让负责任的行为得到回报，而不是被利用。所以整件事包含着消费者保护的考量。
Number three -- we've got to make it easier for people to save for retirement. And today, I'm pleased to announce an important step that we're taking to do just that. Right now, about one-third of American workers do not have access to a retirement plan at work -- one-third. That's why every budget request I've submitted since taking office has included a common-sense proposal to automatically enroll workers without access to a workplace retirement plan in an IRA, which would provide an additional 30 million Americans with access to a retirement plan at work. 第三，我们必须让人们更容易为退休储蓄。今天，我很高兴地宣布我们正在采取的一项重要措施来实现这一目标。目前，约有三分之一的美国劳动者在工作中没有退休计划——三分之一啊。这就是为什么我上任以来提交的每一份预算案都包含一项务实的建议，让没有工作场所退休计划的劳动者自动加入个人退休账户，这将使另外3000万美国人在工作中获得退休计划。
Now, unfortunately, Congress has repeatedly failed to act on this idea. The good news is states are stepping up -– just like they're stepping up in other areas where Congress is not doing its work, like raising the minimum wage or making paid sick leave available for working families. So far, a handful of states have passed laws to create new ways for people without a workplace plan to save for retirement. And more than 20 states are thinking about doing the same. 不幸的是，国会一再未能就这一构想采取行动。好消息是，各州正在挺身而出——就像它们在国会无所作为的其他领域所做的那样，比如提高最低工资或为工薪家庭提供带薪病假。到目前为止，已有少数几个州通过了法律，为没有工作场所退休计划的人创造新的储蓄方式。还有20多个州也在考虑采取同样的措施。
We want to do everything we can to encourage more states to take this step. So I've called on the Department of Labor and Tom Perez to propose a set of rules by the end of the year to provide a clear path forward for states to create retirement savings programs. And if every state did this, tens of millions more Americans could save for retirement at work. 我们要尽一切努力鼓励更多州迈出这一步。因此，我已要求劳工部和汤姆·佩雷斯在年底前提出一套规则，为各州建立退休储蓄计划提供明确的路径。如果每个州都这样做，将有数千万美国人能够在工作中为退休储蓄。
I want to emphasize this point. It is perverse that in this country it is just easier to save if you've already got money. And I'm talking about not just the fact that you've got money to save; I'm talking about just the mechanics, the mechanisms of being able to save, and then take advantage of the tax benefits of saving. 我想强调这一点。在这个国家，有钱人存钱就是更容易，这很不合理。我说的不仅仅是你有钱可存这个事实；我说的是存钱的机制和渠道，以及利用税收优惠的便利。
So if we can just make sure that everybody, even if your employer doesn't provide those mechanisms, you still have a way of accessing it, every dollar you put in, that's going to be a dollar that also then benefits from the same kinds of tax advantages that somebody with a million dollars is able to take advantage of all the time. 所以，如果我们能确保每个人，即使你的雇主不提供这些机制，你仍然有办法参与，你投入的每一美元，都能享受到和那些拥有百万美元的人一直以来享有的同样的税收优惠。
And that's just fair. That's only fair. And that's all we're trying to do here, is make sure that if you're working hard out there, even if you're not making goo-gobs of money and don't have fancy financial advisors and all that, that you can still put away a little nest egg so that you're protected when you get older. 这才公平。这才是真正的公平。我们努力想做的就是这些，就是要确保如果你在努力工作，即使你赚的钱不多，也没有高级的理财顾问什么的，你仍然可以存下一小笔积蓄，让你年老时有所依靠。
So this is just one of a number of steps that we're going to be taking to improve the lives of older Americans. As many of you know, over the past year, we've held regional forums with AARP across the country, heard lots of ideas from people, including folks in this room, about how we can make things better -- especially for families and caregivers. So we're going to be moving ahead with several of the ideas that you've given us. 这只是我们为改善美国老年人生活将要采取的众多措施之一。你们中许多人都知道，过去一年里，我们与美国退休人员协会在全国各地举办了区域论坛，听取了包括在座各位在内的许多人的意见，讨论如何改善状况——尤其是对家庭和照护者而言。因此，我们将推进你们提出的若干构想。
For example, we're going to make it easier for folks who are homebound to get nutritional assistance. We're going to update quality and safety requirements for thousands of nursing homes -- the first major overhaul in nearly 25 years. We're going to train more prosecutors in how to combat elder abuse. We're going to work with Congress to reauthorize the Older Americans Act -- because we know it will provide critical support to families and communities. 例如，我们将让居家老人更容易获得营养援助。我们将更新数千家养老院的质量和安全要求——这是近25年来的首次重大改革。我们将培训更多检察官打击虐待老年人的行为。我们将与国会合作，重新授权《美国老年人法》——因为我们知道，它将为家庭和社区提供关键支持。
We're going to help federal workers and their supervisors better understand how our policies on workplace flexibility can support employees who are also caregivers to aging parents. That's important. And I'm going to keep fighting to make family leave and workplace flexibility available to every American, no matter where they work. It's the right thing to do. 我们将帮助联邦工作人员及其主管更好地了解，我们的工作场所灵活政策如何能够同时照顾年迈父母的员工。这很重要。我将继续努力，让每一个美国人都能享有家庭休假和工作场所的灵活性，无论他们在哪里工作。这是正确的做法。
Every study shows that the kind of workplace flexibility we're talking about isn't just good for the employees; ultimately, it ends up being good for the employers, because you get more loyal, more productive employees with less turnover. And it's the right thing to do. And with the technologies that we have today, there's no reason why we can't make this happen. 每项研究都表明，我们所说的这种工作场所灵活性不仅对员工有利；最终对雇主也有利，因为员工更忠诚、更高效，人员流动率更低。而且这是正确的做法。凭借我们今天拥有的技术，我们没有理由做不到这一点。
So this year, we mark the 80th anniversary of Social Security. We mark the 50th anniversary of Medicare. We've grown so accustomed to these programs being a part of American life -- these bedrock, foundation stones of our society -- sometimes it's easy to forget how revolutionary they were at the time. They were hard to get done. 今年，我们纪念社会保障制度诞生80周年。我们纪念医疗保险制度诞生50周年。这些制度已经成为美国生活的一部分——成为我们社会的基石——我们太习以为常了，有时很容易忘记它们在当时是多么具有革命性。这些制度当年推行起来非常艰难。
When FDR tried to pass Social Security, critics called it "socialism." When President Kennedy and President Johnson -- and the Dingells -- worked to create Medicare, cynics raised the alarm about government takeover of health care. And now we've got signs saying, "Get your government hands off of my Medicare." 当年罗斯福试图通过《社会保障法》时，批评者称之为"社会主义"。当肯尼迪总统和约翰逊总统——还有丁格尔家族——努力创立医疗保险制度时，愤世嫉俗者惊呼政府要接管医疗保健。而现在，我们看到有人举着牌子说："别让政府的手碰我的医疗保险。"
The point is change has always been hard. Detractors always are trying to maximize people's fear of the unknown. But ultimately, hope triumphs over fear. We choose to do big things here in America. Like I said a couple weeks back -- three generations ago, we chose to end the era where seniors were left to languish in poverty. Two generations ago, we chose to end an age when Americans in their golden years didn't have the guarantee of health care. This generation, we chose to go even further, and now health care in America is more affordable and available than ever before. 关键是，变革从来都不是容易的。诋毁者总是想方设法放大人们对未知的恐惧。但最终，希望战胜了恐惧。在美国，我们选择做伟大的事情。就像我几周前说过的——三代人以前，我们选择结束老年人在贫困中挣扎的时代。两代人以前，我们选择结束老年人没有医疗保障的年代。这一代人，我们选择更进一步，如今美国的医疗保健比以往任何时候都更加实惠、更加普及。
In this anniversary of those incredible achievements, we need to recommit ourselves to finishing the work that earlier generations began-- make sure this is a country that remains one where no matter who you are or where you started off, you're treated with dignity, your hard work is rewarded, your contributions are valued, you have a shot to achieve your dreams whatever your age. 在这些非凡成就的周年纪念日，我们需要重新投身于完成前辈们开创的事业——确保这个国家始终是这样一个地方：无论你是谁，无论你出身如何，你都活得有尊严，你的努力会得到回报，你的贡献会受到重视，无论年龄大小，你都有机会实现梦想。
That's the America we're all working for. And I'm proud to work alongside you. 这就是我们所有人共同奋斗的美国。我很自豪能与你们并肩工作。
Thank you so much. Congratulations. Have a wonderful conference. 非常感谢大家。祝贺你们。祝会议圆满成功。
Thank you. 谢谢。