Argument203 Ineffable 小组第一次作业，组员请跟帖

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203The following appeared in a newspaper feature story.

"At the small, nonprofit hospital in the town of Saluda, the average length of a patient's stay is two days; at the large, for-profit hospital in the nearby city of Megaville, the average patient stay is six days. Also, the cure rate among patients in the Saluda hospital is about twice that of the Megaville hospital. The Saluda hospital has more employees per patient than the hospital in Megaville, and there are few complaints about service at the local hospital. Such data indicate that treatment in smaller, nonprofit hospitals is more economical and of better quality than treatment in larger, for-profit hospitals."

The argument concludes that treatment in smaller, nonprofit hospitals is more economical and of better quality than treatment in larger, for-profit hospitals. This conclusion is based on the premises that Megaville hospital, a nonprofit local hospital, the average patient’s stay rate of which is one third of Megaville hospital, a for-profit lager hospital, and that its cure rate is doubled with higher employees per patients and less complains. This argument is not logically persuasive, however, because it relies on numerous shaky assumptions for which no evidence has been given.

To begin with, the comparison of average length and cure rate of patient's stay in predicted on the assumptions that the severity of patients in two hospitals are comparable. However, the author provides no information to illustrate this point. If the patients in Salude hospital are only suffering from diseases such as catching a cold, while others in Megaville hospital are enduring the diabetes or cancer, it would be normal that the patients would stay longer with lower cure rate in Megaville hospital, which is not strong enough to demonstrate the Saluda hospital is better.

In addition, the data of employees per patient is not an accurate factor to evaluate the treatment in the two hospitals. We can assume that although the employees in Saluda hospital are mainly composed of ordinary patient-setters, rather than the professional doctors, while the employees in Megaville hospital are mainly consist of proficient doctors with high reputation, who can handle a lot of severe disease. If so, it is obvious the service in the Megaville hospital is better.

Finally, the fact that the Saluda hospital received less complains will not necessarily indicate that the people are satisfied with its service. Because the satisfaction cannot be gauged through the amount of complains. As Megaville hospital is larger, which would deal with more patients, then even there are more complains, the total complain rate would be lower. Furthermore, since the Megaville hospital is for-profit, people would have higher expectation for it so as to induce more complains.

In conclusion, this argument is logically unsound. If the author could demonstrate that the patients in the two hospitals are comparable, that the higher employees per patient rate in Saluda hospital would indicate its better quality, and that the amount of complains are equal to the overall satisfaction, this argument would be much stronger. Without the additional information, however, we will be wary about accepting the argument's conclusion.