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  canihazJD Alum Member Sage ⭐

  October 2020 edited October 2020 8491 karma

  Dr. Schilling: Those who advocate replacing my country’s private health insurance system with nationalized health insurance because of the rising costs of medical care fail to consider the high human costs that consumers pay in countries with nationalized insurance: access to high-technology medicine is restricted. Kidney transplants and open-heart surgery-familiar life-saving procedures are rationed. People are denied their right to treatments they want and need.

  Dr. Laforte: Your country’s reliance on private health insurance denies access even to basic, conventional medicine to the many people who cannot afford adequate health coverage. With nationalized insurance, rich and poor have equal access to life-saving medical procedures, and people’s right to decent medical treatment regardless of income is not violated.

  In responding to Dr. Schilling, Dr. Laforte employs which one of the following argumentative strategies?

  Method of argument:

  (A) showing that the objections raised by Dr. Schilling have no bearing on the question of which of the two systems under consideration is the superior system.

  Laforte doesn't do this, in fact I think the whole point is that he goes further in depth than Schilling... or at least broadens the scope.

  (B) calling into question Dr. Schilling’s status as an authority - stop there... the rest is a time sink. already descriptively inaccurate.

  (C) producing counterexamples to Dr. Schilling’s claims that nationalized health insurance schemes extract high human costs from consumers.

  No counterexamples are given. You can stop reading as soon as they say counterexamples. I think this is a kind of common attempt to get you to conflate premises with an actual example. Laforte just says that under nationalized insurance, rich and poor have equal access to life-saving medical procedures, and people’s right to decent medical treatment regardless of income is not violated. These are not examples nor do they counter Schilling’s claim that "nationalized insurance extracts high human costs."

  (D) demonstrating that Dr. Schilling’s reasoning is persuasive only because of his ambiguous use of the key word “consumer".

  This just doesn't happen. Laforte does not address the use of consumer.

  (E) showing that the force of Dr. Schilling’s criticism depends on construing the key notion of access in a particular limited way.

  This is correct because Laforte addresses not just availability but ability to pay, whereas Schilling's only addresses availability.

  Schilling - you guys want to kill private healthcare because its expensive, but under national care, access is restricted - certain procedures are rationed.

  Laforte - well if you want to talk about access, private healthcare denies access to just basic medicine because its too expensive. With nationalized care, cost isn't an issue so everyone has equal access and won't be denied because they're poor.

  (I took some liberties but you get the point)
• Whatslsat Member

  October 2020 edited October 2020 476 karma

  This was so so helpful!! I've seen this "availability vs ability to pay" concept come up before in another question. I got the question wrong for the same reason. Now this has reaffirmed my understanding and hopefully I wont miss it in the future. Seems like a question that they throw every once in awhile.

  Your explanation of counter-example vs premise also makes sense. Laforte doesn't give an instance
  (i.e. example) where private healthcare is NOT expensive or procedures are NOT rationed.
  Like you said, he broadens the scope, introducing other considerations like availability vs ability to pay.

  Just so that I understood it correctly, would this be an example of a counterexample?
  Argument 1:
  c- all dogs are good companions
  p- they provide unconditional love
  p2- you can cuddle with them in bed.

  Argument 2:
  counter-example That's not true. My dog Benji is violent and bites people.

  Argument 3:
  (counter)-premise some dogs are violent and bite people, they are not nice.

  So my understanding is that counter-examples are, by definition, specific (maybe even unique or extreme case) and would have to go against a general statement, conjecture, or a definition. Is this accurate?

  Can a premise be both? how do you distinguish between a premise and counterexample? are they completely distinct?
• canihazJD Alum Member Sage ⭐

  October 2020 8491 karma

  I think you got the difference between the two, but (slightly tangential) I don't know that "violent and bites" necessarily counters your argument 1. You could have a dog that gives you unconditional love and cuddles in bed that also is violent and bites people.

  I just think of examples as saying "here's an instance of what I'm talking about".

  Counterexamples would be used as a part of a counterargument, like a premise but a specific instance of something used to support the overall counterargument. Note that the only thing that gives you the "counter" part is that it is being used against another argument. As it applies to this specific question, one of the failure points of C is that the Laforte doesn't really counter Schilling's argument. All they're doing is pointing out bad aspects of each other's healthcare systems.

  Maybe someone else can weigh in, but in my experience examples usually function as premises (think part-to-whole flaw arguments, though the use of an example isn't necessarily a flaw), as distractors (conclusion/premise claim, followed by a specific example of the exact claim), or can also just be a stand alone statement in a agree/disagree type question.