The Saluda hospital - Advice for my GRE argument

Here is my GRE argment essay. Please make suggestions about its structure and language. Thanks in advance.

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."

The arguer suggested that treatment in smaller, nonprofit hospitals is more economical and of better quality than that in larger, for-profit hospitals. In order to draw this conclusion, a comparison between two hospitals was provided. One is a nonprofit hospital in Saluda and the other is for-profit hospital in the nearby city of Megaville. Patient's average stay time in the nonprofit hospital is shorter than the other; in addition, the cure rate in nonprofit hospital is twice of the for-profit one. While all these facts seem to prove that the first one is better than the latter, a deep reflection on this argument will point out several flaws that undermine this conclusion.

First, the shorter average stay cannot indicate a better medical service. On the contrary, it is probably resulted from the poorer accommodation; furthermore, patients may leave this nonprofit hospital because it cannot cure their diseases, and maybe they leave for the for-profit hospital. More importantly, the different performance between the two hospitals, i.e. fewer complaints and higher cure rate in the nonprofit hospital, is very possible because they are of different classifications and so they have different types of patients. For example, the nonprofit hospital may aim at common illness like cough and flu, so its patients recover easily and quickly; the for-profit hospital, as stated in the argument, is a large one, so it is more likely to have patients with complex and rare diseases like cancer or TB, thus no wonder it cures less patients and need longer time to do so.

Secondly, the assertion that the nonprofit hospital in Saluda is more economical than the for-profit one in Megaville stands on no obvious evidence. Conversely, it is more likely that the for-profit one is more economical as the arguer pointed out that the Saluda hospital has more employees per patient, so perhaps for each patient more money was paid. Meanwhile, the revenue of a for-profit hospital is directly linked to its efficiency and service, so the assertion--the for-profit hospital is less economical and poorer in service--is very suspicious.

Finally, even if the conditions of these two hospitals are identical in every aspect except that one is nonprofit and the other is for-profit, the conclusion expanded this single case to all other hospitals too arbitrarily. This is only one case happened in a specific place, other areas have different economic and cultural conditions. For instance, in developing countries, local governments or even states can hardly support non-profit hospitals, then how can we expect non-profit hospitals offer better service in these areas?

In sum, the arguer's claim is not convincing without qualifications and further evidence. To make the conclusion more credible, the arguer should limit it in certain places and provide more direct evidence to prove non-profit hospitals' better service and economical performance. By the way, if explanations on why non-profit hospitals can be both more economical and of better quality are presented, the argument can be a truly authentic one.

Hmmm. Mostly, you are doing what the GRE wants to see: critical thinking. But you need to clean up your tone for that to be evident. First of all, drop all references to "the arguer." Nobody is arguing anything. You have seen some facts as well as a tentative conclusion. Make the case for or against that conclusion without reference to some mythical "arguer."

Next, be careful not to shade your language toward your favored conclusion.


You've not seen any evidence that the hospitals are classified differently or see different types of patients. So, how you need to phrase this is to say that classification of the hospital and type of patients seen are two possibly confounding variables that might account for the evident disparity in their results. You can give the same arguments and examples you gave, just be more tentative in your phrasing and avoid phrases like "no wonder."

In comparing for- and non-profit hospitals, you cannot neglect the issue of profit. For-profit hospitals have one cost that non-profit hospitals do not: The profits that are skimmed out of the income and distributed to investors. In a non-profit hospital, all income goes to care, infrastructure, etc. If you are going to argue that it is possibly more cost effective to skim some money out of what patients pay rather than devote it all to care, you must say how it is that this might be true.

Yeah, the "no wonder" thing should go. I'd avoid revising too much to sound more tentative, though. This generally leads to weaker writing if overdone, and the tendency in most students is to err in that direction.

You might also point out that a for-profit business, like any other business, needs to provide high levels of customer satisfaction, which a non-profit hospital, especially if its government funded, does not. In fact, this raises the question of what the article meant by "non-profit" in the first place.

Also, you might ask why the study picked hospitals located in areas with very different population densities. You sort of touch on this in some of your other arguments, but it is worth being explicit, as city hospitals presumably face a very different set of problems than a small town one. Disease rates will be higher, for instance, as the number of tourists, both domestic and foreign, who visit the city will be higher, as will the number of crime victims, etc. The population density also likely explains the lower doctor to patient ratio.

Finally, you could point out that the study contradicts other findings, which show much longer wait times, and much lower survival rates in public (non-profit)hospitals compared to private (for-profit) hospitals.

That is really a powerful way to undermine the conclusion, i.e. use the evidence given in the argument.
Thanks. I'll improve my argument.

Besides, how to drop out "the arguer"?
By using "the author" or "the argument"?

Personally speaking "the author" is good.

"The author" works. Or "the newspaper," or "the article." These all would be more standard, and accurate, than "the arguer."