Definitely, a victory 小组第2次作业 Argument203 By3号echo（huohuo0101）

huohuo0101UID: 2760840

203.The 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."
逻辑错误
1仅比较两个医院不能代表所有情况。
2城市和乡村的诸多差别，使得每一个结论都值得怀疑
AS医院的住院时间比M医院短，并不能完全说明S医院比M医院的收费低或治疗效果好。有可能在乡村居住的人的收入较低以至于他们不愿意承受住院的费用，于是在没有完全康复的情况下提早出院。
B单位病人服务的人员多也不能说明S医院的疗效好。本身乡村的人口小是造成这一结果的直接原因
C B单位的投诉少可能是因为城市人口比乡村人口更经常反映自己的不满。另外抱怨数量的绝对数量优势也不能说明问题。M医院的就医人数可能远远大于S医院，所以有可能M医院的抱怨比例比S医院还要低
3作者选取的评价指标本身也值得怀疑
The speaker asserts that treatment in smaller, nonprofit hospitals is more economical and of better quality than treatment in larger, for-profit hospitals by citing data of several indexes on which two hospital are compared on. I found the assertion unconvincing in many aspects.
First of all, the argument assumes that the condition in two specific hospitals represents general condition of hospitals of the same kind. Yet, the speaker fail to offer any evidence to substantiate this assumption. Absent such evidence, it’s likely that out side Saluda or Megavile the condition is totally reversed that hospitals in small town has longer patient stay, less employees per patient and receive more complaints.
Putting the unsubstantiated assumption aside, the comparison itself is unconvincing. The most obvious and crucial flaw is that the speaker neglect the difference between town and city where two hospital are located respectively. The town-city difference could explain all the three comparison results thus makes the assertion that small, nonprofit hospital is preferable ungrounded. The first result may be due to the fact that people in town can’t afford long stay in hospital and often leave hospital before total recovery. The second result can easily be explained by population difference between city and town. Smaller population leads to more employees per patient who are not evidently scientifically attributed. For that matter, more employees per patient has no direct relation with treatment effect. The third resulted also fail to support the assertion. Because it’s possible that people living in the city are encouraged and used to express dissatisfaction. Whereas people living in town tend to conceal their feelings.
Moreover, the three indexes chosen to be compared are suspicious. Average hospital stay relates to many factors other than treatment quality . For example , good nursing service may keep patients staying longer. And if the fee is covered by the insurance, patient would not mind staying longer. As to the number of employees per patient, it’s quality of employees and hospital management not employee quantity that determines how competent a hospital is. Third, absolute larger number of complaints doesn’t mean the hospital is more satisfying. It’s likely that total patient number in Megaville hospital is way larger than S hospital, thus makes the complain rates of Megaville hospital lower than S hospital instead.
To sum up, the speaker asserts that treatment in smaller, nonprofit hospitals is more economical and of better quality than treatment in larger, for-profit hospitals. The assertion is poorly supported by comparisons on three suspicious indexes between two hospitals which are not representative of general condition. To make the assertion convincing, the speaker has to find larger sample to compare and rule out town-city difference. In addition, statistic that bolsters the three indexes also need to be provided.