Weaken Questions - - Question 25

Compared to nonprofit hospitals of the same size, investor-owned hospitals require less public investment in the form...

rpark December 4, 2019

What is the correct answer and why?

Is B the correct answer

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BenMingov December 4, 2019

Hi rpark, thanks for the question!

This argument concludes that investor owned hospitals are better at delivering medical care than their public counterparts. It provides three reasons for this claim: requires less public investment, needs fewer employees, and has higher occupancy levels.

Given that this is a weaken question, we need to pick the answer choice that will hurt the argument that privately owned hospitals deliver better medical care than nonprofit hospitals.

Let's examine the answer choices:

A) What nonprofit hospitals charge patients will neither strengthen nor weaken the argument. It has no effect on whether or not privately owned hospitals deliver better medical care than nonprofit hospitals. The only thing price tells us is, perhaps, value.

B) Correct answer. If similar illnesses have a better prognosis at public hospitals than privately owned hospitals, then how can we conclude that privately owned hospitals deliver better medical care? This would greatly weaken the argument.

C) Nonprofit hospitals do more fundraising. Fun fact. Tells us nothing about the quality of medical care.

D) Similarly experienced doctors earn more at nonprofit hospitals than at privately owned hospitals. Be careful not to conflate earnings with skill or knowledge. We are clearly told that these doctors have similar qualifications. What we know from this is that nonprofit hospitals pay more generously; this does not inform us with regard to quality of medical care.

E) Whichever hospital receives more donations again tells us nothing about the quality of care delivered. Source of funds is irrelevant.

I hope this helps, please let me know if you have any other questions.