ARGU 203习作，还望各位多多指教。

sky3721UID: 2566862

TOPIC: ARGUMENT203 - 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."
WORDS: 472          TIME: 00:30:00          DATE: 2010/8/10 15:59:55



Based on the comparison between the two special hospitals in the argument, the author comes to the conclusion that small and nonprofit hospitals have much more advantages than large and for-profit ones. The evidence shows that the former one performs better than the latter in many aspects, namely the length of stay, cure rate, doctors per patient and satisfaction. Rational as it seems at first glance, it suffers from a series of critical fallacies after clear scrutiny, which render it unsound as it stands.
The first problem lies in the precondition that the conditions of patients in these two different hospitals are similar enough to be compared in parallel. It cannot be ignored that the distinction between the hospitals may possibly lead to vital difference on the patients. For example, those in emergency or with severe diseases might likely to be send to the large one and it is hard for doctors to save their lives. Whereas, the small one, as is often the case, may only receive people with easy and slight sick, which will affect the cure rate essentially.
Apart from this, I also have to show my suspicion of the observation on the number of doctors per patient and complaints about service. More employees for a patient says nothing about the quality of treatment. It may just means the fact that little patients choose to go the hospital, indicating much discontentment and bad treatment. Furthermore, people's requirement on the free things is usually much lower than that on paid items and it is similar on hospital. Few complaints is probably just because patients request less on it and has nothing to do with the treatment quality.
Last but not least, the author also fails to take into account the specialty of these two hospitals and neglects other objective factors which may influence the results. Even the local hospital really provides better treatment than the nearby one, chances are that most doctors in the local hospital are better in medical skill or more professional and they work for little paid just resulting from their responsibility and charity because Saluda is such a poor town.  We also cannot rule out the possibility that many employees in Megaville are unqualified. In these cases, it is unwarranted to presume the likewise phenomena would emerge in other hospitals as well.
From what has been discussed above, the primary drawback in the argument is no taking into account several substantial factors, some of which are critical to an recommendation. To make the argument more persuasive, the arguer needs detailed consideration and comprehensive analysis. If more details about the two hospitals had been described in the argument, the conclusion would be more acceptable and convincing. Moreover, it would be welcomed if some other observations could be provided to exclude the possible effect caused by other factors.   






出炉不久啊，还望各位猛拍，多谢指教。

sky3721UID: 2566862

自己顶一下……