Argument 203

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: 404 TIME: 00:30:00 DATE: 2008-4-1 14:37:57

In this argument, the speaker concludes that treatment in larger, for-profit hospitals is less economical and of worse quality than treatment in smaller, nonprofit hospitals. To support this verdict, the arguer compares the hospital in the town of Saluda and the hospital in the nearby city of Megaville in several aspects--for example, cure rate, number of employees per patient and patients' complaints. However, close scrutiny of evidence unveils that this argument actually suffers from several critical blemishes, as discussed below.

To begin with, albeit the average length of a patient's stay in the hospital of Meagville is three times as the period of average stay in Saluda, it does not necessarily imply that efficiency of doctors in Saluda is far higher than those in Megaville. It is quite probable that doctors in Saluda chiefly tackle common disease, such as flu, headache, etc, while the hospital in Megaville is mainly curing cancer, fracture, to name just a few, which would otherwise undermine the conclusion. Moreover, from the cure rate of these two differing hospitals, the possibility aforementioned may actually reflect the truth.

Secondly, the fact that Saluada hospital has more doctors and nurses per patient than the hospital in Megaville may have alternative explanations. This fact fails to tell us how many patients per day each hospital will receive. Perhaps merely a few patients go to Saluda hospital for medical care; on the other hand, a myriad of people who are sick visit the hospital in Megaville. Therefore, though the number of doctors in Megaville hospital is indeed less than the number in Saluda hospital, we could not conclude that patients in Megaville hospital are not sufficiently coddled.

Thirdly, more complaints about Megaville hospital than Saluda hospital also is not powerful evidence of the speaker's culmination. This statement does not mention the proportion of patients who complain about service at each hospital. Therefore, it is quite possible that the result of a great number of patients in Megaville plus a much small proportion surpasses the number of complaints in Saluda. In effect, the Megaville hospital indeed has a better service than Saluda hospital.

In summary, this statement actually suffers from a few vital fallacies as discussed above. To solidify the conclusion, the speaker would have to demonstrate that the numbers of patients who go to Saluda hospital or Megaville hospital is the same, and further prove these two hospitals tackle the same kinds of diseases.