Self-paced
Conclusion Coherent solutions for the problem of reducing health-care costs cannot be found within the current piecemeal system of paying these costs. ███ ██████ ██ ████ ████ ██████ █████ ███████████ █████████ ███ ████████ █████ █████████ ██ ██████ ████████ █████████ ███ █████ ██ ████████ ███████ ████ ████ █████ ██ ███ █████ ██████ █████████ ███ ████████ ████ ███████ ██ ███ ██████ ██ ███ ███████ ███████ ██ ███ ██████ ████ ██ ██ ███ ████ ██ ████ ███████ ████████ ███████ ███ ██ ███████ █████████ █████ ████ ██ ██████████ ███ ████████ ████ ███ ██████████ ███████████ █████████ ███████ ███ ███ ████ ███ █████ ██ ███████████ ████████ ███ ████ ██████ ██ ███████████ ████████ ████ ████████ ███████ █████ █████████ ██████████ ██ ████████ █████████ █████ ██ █████████ ████████
Russian Nesting Support
This stimulus is a bit like a matryoshka doll – each successive claim provides support for the claim above. Here's a distilled version with the cruxes of Q7 and Q8 pointed out:
Conclusion: The current piecemeal system fundamentally cannot work. ←Q8
Support: Under this system, everyone just shifts costs around to everyone else.
Support-for-the-support: In the 1980s, we saw a bunch of reforms that just shifted costs around, kinda like a balloon. ←Q7
Support-for-the-support-for-the-support: Here's one example reform that shifted costs around.
7.
The argument proceeds by
a
showing that shifting █████ ████ ███ ███████ ███████████ ███ ███████ ██ ███████████ █████████████
"Contradicts" is an overstrong word. The argument's example involving government cost-cutting does show that trying to shift costs onto the patient ends up putting more costs on health-care providers, but that doesn't "contradict the premise of health-care reimbursement."
b
attributing without justification ██████████ ██████ ██ ██████
This just fully comes out of nowhere. "Intent" in particular is a term referring to people's mindsets. We do have various incentives for parties to shift costs onto one another, but there's no indication that behavior is fraudulent.
c
employing an analogy ██ ████████████ ██████████████████
The balloon is the analogy (because, you know, spending isn't literally a balloon), and that analogy characterizes the interrelationships between the different parties in the health-care system (e.g. insurers, physicians, patients, etc.).
d
denying the possibility ██ █ ████████ ██ ███████████ ████ ████████ ███████████ ██████
"Denying the possibility of a solution" is good as far as it goes, since it might refer to the conclusion that there are no solutions to the piecemeal system. But this argument doesn't "disparage each possible alternative system"; it simply disparages the current piecemeal system, suggesting that we need to find an alternative system.
e
demonstrating that cooperation ██ ████████ ██ ██████ ██ ████████
The argument's example proves the exact opposite point: the government's attempt to cut costs ended up backfiring precisely because cooperation between the various parties in the health-care system is not feasible.