argument203 by MYcolting

MYcoltingUID: 2563080

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: 336          TIME: 00:29:16          DATE: 2009-3-2 19:48:47

完全模拟考试 写得超烂

In this argument, the author in favor of the assertion that treatment in small, nonprofit hospitals can save patients more money who at the same time receive better quality than the treatment in larger, for-profit hospitals due to the data appeared in a newspaper feature story. Though it is seemingly reasonable and impeccable, the conclusion, in fact, suffers from several fallacies.

First of all, in my view there is no ration to make comparison between the smaller, non-profit hospitals and the larger, for-profit ones. In order to illustrate the assertion, the author indicates that the average length of a patient's stay in nonprofit hospital is less than that in for-profit hospitals. However, there are, actually, many factors which are overlooked by the argument. We all share a belief that the serious illnesses often cannot be cured in small hospital for the small one have no experts and facilities to cure serious patients that make that patients go big hospital for cure. What is more, serious illnesses usually take more time than the small one. Accordingly, the cure rate is lower because that it is difficulty to cure it. Grounded in the reason mention above, it is understandable that patients in big hospital take more time.

In addition, small hospitals are often located in small places such as town and country. It is normal that the population of the small places is less than the big city. And the patients are in proportion to the size of population. Thus, the phenomenon that Saluda hospital has more employees per patient than the hospital in Megaville is not surprise for us. And because of this, complaints about service at local hospital are few for the faculties there is not busy.

In conclusion, due to the above analysis, the argument is convincing because that the author overlook many other factors which lead to the different situations in a larger hospital and the smaller ones. If the author provided more evidence to support his assertion, the argument will be stronger.