argument 203 [TSUBASA] by wildrose800331

wildrose800331UID：2602131

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: 364 / 393
TIME: 00:30:00+ 2 mins
DATE: 2009-7-1 11:28:53

The author, in a newspaper, presumes that treatment in smaller, nonprofit hospitals is more economical and better quality than treatment in larger, for-profit hospitals. To scaffold this assumption, the arguer compares situation of two hospitals respectively in Saluda and Megaville, in detail, in the aspects of a patient's stay, the cure rate, employees available, and complaints. A close examination reveals both the presumptions and deduction process are fallacious and problematic.
To begin with, the comparison is grounded on a subjective certainty as a precondition. It is inferred that the patients' conditions and illness are equivalent in the hospital of Saluda and Megaville, which is at any way unreal and thus weak to found the deduction as a prerequisite. To be concrete, if residents in Saluda are relatively young and healthy with faint possibilities of chronicle diseases or others belonging to the elderly, they, of course, can be treated easily and recover more quickly. The variable of patients undoubtedly account for patients' stay and the cure rate.
In addition, the analogy of these two hospitals is incomplete and thus insufficient to corroborate the advantage of Saluda. Specifically, there are other determiners of quality in treatment besides those mentioned ones. More employees per patient itself can not guarantee the due medical care and further ensure the better quality of treatment in Saluda hospital. Neither can few complaints. By contrast, Saluda hospital may have to reduce the length of a patient's stay because of limited facilities and larger population, since it is merely a small and nonprofit hospital. Thus, listed data fail to support the author's hypothesis.
Finally, overgeneralization is obvious and patent in this argument. Even if Saluda hospital has advantages over the one in Megaville, this very case can not automatically as a sound evidence to verify the assertion that treatment in smaller, nonprofit hospitals is more economical and of better quality than treatment in larger, for-profit hospitals.
In all, the conclusion reached in this argument is misleading and unwarranted. If the information of treated patients has been given, if the analogy of these two hospitals is complete and exact, the hypothesis about these two can be convincing. However, I still suspend my judgment on the generalization of all hospital until the author bolster the conclusion by providing more evidences and delicate deduction, otherwise, the author is simply begging the question all the time.