Argue 203 求改 呵呵

waholuluUID: 2677457

题目：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."
In this argument, the author draw a conclusion that nonprofit hospitals is more economical and of better quality than treatment in larger, for-profit hospitals. This conclusion is based on a fact that the patients of non-profit hospital in Saluda will spent less time than patients of for-profit hospital in Megaville. To justify the claim, the author cites that the cure rate of Sadula hospital is as twice as that of Megaville. To strengthen the proposal, additional evidence that comparing to hospital in Megaville, the Saluda hospital has more employees per patients and less complaints about service. A careful examination of this argument, however, reveals how groundless the conclusion is.

To begin with, the mere fact that patients in non-profit hospital of Saluda will stay shorter than that in for-profit hospital is insufficient evidence to support the conclusion. There may exist a world of differences between the town of Saluda and the city of Megaville. However, the author makes no explanation for the similarities between Saluda and Megaville. It is highly possible that people in Saluda are healthier than people living in Megavill due to air pollution and huge working pressure. Or perhaps the doctors in Saluda are less professional who would like to trade treating effect for saving time and that they just want to get the patients out of the hospital as soon as possible and to receive new patient. Without ruling out these or other factors, the author cannot confidently draw a conclusion.

In addition, the insufficient evidence provided fails to lend solid support to the argument. Perhaps the for-profit hospital in Megaville is more advanced and when people in Saluda get seriously sickness which cannot be cured simply, they would like to choose the Megaville's for-profit hospitals for a better situation. Or perhaps for-profit hospitals have more modernized medical appliance which can replace some work once had to be fulfilled by the doctors and nurses. In short, this evidence makes no guarantee that the hospitals of Saluda are representative of non-profit hospitals and the hospitals of Megaville are representative of for-profit hospitals.

Finally, even if the author can substantiate the foregoing assumptions, he or she commits a fallacy of hasty generalizations which assumes that the more complaints about the service at the hospitals of Megaville do not necessarily indicate the worse treatment of it. There exist many factors that can possibly result in a higher number of complaints. It is certainly possible that though the number of complaints is higher, the percentage might be lower. Or perhaps patients of for-profit hospitals are more concerning about the service and treatment they enjoy for the reason that they may have spent a lot of money, while patients of non-profit hospitals would have more tolerance for this. This conclusion remains unwarranted without ruling out these possibilities.

To sum up, this argument is not well-reasoned as it stands. To make it logically acceptable, the author is supposed to demonstrate that non-profit hospitals indeed have a better treatment and services for its patients. Also, to solidify this conclusion, more evidence concerning the information of patients and the comparison between Saluda and Megaville should be presented.

waholuluUID: 2677457

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I_will_be_backUID: 2677665

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