Personnel officer: The exorbitant cost of our health-insurance benefit

Question

Personnel officer : The exorbitant cost of our health-insurance benefits reflects the high dollar amount of medical expenses incurred by our employees. Employees who are out of shape, as a group, have higher doctor bills and longer hospital stays than do their colleagues who are fit. Therefore, since we must reduce our health-insurance costs, we should offer a rigorous fitness program of jogging and weight lifting to all employees, and require employees who are out of shape to participate.

The conclusion reached by the personnel officer depends on which of the following assumptions?

(A) A person who is fit would receive a routine physical checkup by a doctor less regularly than would a person who is out of shape.

(B) The medical expenses incurred by employees who are required to participate in the fitness program would be less than those incurred by employees who are not required to participate.

(C) The strenuous activities required of out-of-shape employees by the program would not by themselves generate medical expenses greater than any reduction achieved by the program.

(D) The fitness program would serve more employees who are out of shape than it would employees who are fit.

(E) The employees who participate in the fitness program would be away from work because of illness less than would the employees who do not participate.

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LXVE · Accepted Answer

Hey Nina, B is saying the medical expenses of those required to excercise will be less than the expenses for those not required. But the conclusion revolves around medical expenses lowering period. Whether the expense drops by one dollar or one million dollars, as long as this excercise program can reduce costs it is successful. The excercise program is also open to all employees. So let's imagine this office has 10 people- 8 are in great shape, and 2 are extremely obese. Those two now start excercising, and the costs to insure them drop. Must those costs decrease beyond what the other healthy employees already cost? Certainly not. As long as cost drops any amount the plan succeeds. C also very much destroys the plan if it were negated. Let's say these two out of shape employees are just reaaaaally out of shape, and they can't handle excercising at all. What if one of these guys gets a stroke or something from the intense excercise? This plan would have failed miserably in such case.

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dwivedys · Answer

gluon · Answer

I choose C for the same reasons explained so nicely by Dwivedy's.

Path · Answer

Between B and C, I pick C.
If program creates other types of medical expenses, than program will not reduce the health care cost.

GMATBLACKBELT · Answer

I think its C.

A: This is irrelevant. Nothing is said that routine physical checkups are expensive. 
B: this is a tricky answer, this is not an assumption. What if the medical expenses of those who participate are higher? Well those who must participate are unhealthy. What if the bills decreased b/c of the fitness program for those who are unhealthy and are less than without the fitness program. This is not an assumption. 

Ex/ Overweight ppl: Med bills b/f fitness = 200 Med after fitness =130

Underweight ppl: Med bills b/f = 120 med bills after = 120

Overall cost is still down. thus, this is not a neccesary assumption b/c the bills dont HAVE to be less than those who don't workout.

D: We care whether the program decreases costs. This doesn't really fit our criteria. Again we can use B as our base to get rid of this choice. So what if more fit people use the program? As long as costs go down, not a big deal. 

E: Again we can use the info from B to get rid of this choice. Also this one is out of scope. Who says illnesses equate to higher medical bills. requires an additional assumption. no good.


C: if the program causes more medical bills then the argument is negated. We have to prove that the author's conclusion is valid. This choice fits.

JingChan · Answer

I chose C.
It directly ties the cost component to the effects of the fitness programs.

A ignores a large part of the equation by only citing the checkups.
B ignores the "cost reduction" aspect of the program
D ignores the "cost reduction" aspect of the program
E speaks to productivity reduction, not health costs

Nina1987 · Answer

I am still not clear why B is not an assumption. I totally understand C is a superior choice though and I chose C over B. However doing so I had to spend sometime comparing the two options. I would like to know if there is an easier/faster way to get rid of B.

Here is why B was tempting to me:

B: The medical expenses incurred by employees who are required to participate in the fitness program would be less than those incurred by employees who are not required to participate.

If medical expenses incurred by employees who are required to participate (out of shape group) would be less than those not required (fit group) that means the exercise program is indeed helping out-of-shape gourp to reduce the medical expenses. This should act as strengthener and hence it should be an assumption.

Experts pls help

hsbinfy · Answer

i had A and C...

C is much more strong...if you negate it the argument falls apart. the cost will rise much more which will make the program a failure if you negate C.

A says about hospital visit which is not mentioned in argument.So after looking at C , A looked irrelevant to me

Divyadisha · Answer

Conclusion- Because health expenses are needed to be reduced, fitness program should be offered and out of shape employees should participate in the program.

It can be inferred that officer thinks that this program will help reducing the costs and not adding any other cost.

A. A person who is fit would receive a routine physical checkup by a doctor less regularly than would a person who is out of shape.  It doesn't talk about the cost
. 
B. The medical expenses incurred by employees who are required to participate in the fitness program would be less than those incurred by employees who are not required to participate.  We don't know this. We want to reduce costs incurred by unfit people.

C. The strenuous activities required of out-of-shape employees by the program would not by themselves generate medical expenses greater than any reduction achieved by the program.  This is what we were looking for. There will be no addition in the cost because of this program.
 
D. The fitness program would serve more employees who are out of shape than it would employees who are fit.  No information is given on how many employees will be served.
 
E. The employees who participate in the fitness program would be away from work because of illness less than would the employees who do not participate.  Cost is not discussed in this option.

anairamitch1804 · Answer

These guys want to reduce their health care costs. Therefore, any measure that drives up this cost is definitely a deal-breaker. Hence, their program for "out of shape" folks generates medical expenses that are higher than any possible reduction, their idea, in essence, would not work. Hence, the assumption that this scenario will not happen is critical to the rationale of the idea. Hence, the answer is C.

The aim of the argument is :to bring down the medical expenses incurred by employees who are out of shape.(as they incure high amount)

We are not concerned with those employees who are "inshape"

B is comparing costs incured by employees who are required to participate to who are not required to participate.

Argument is not tryin to do that..

in C, if we try to use the negation rule..

"The strenuous activities required of out-of-shape employees by the program would by themselves generate medical expenses greater than any reduction achieved by the program. "

If this is the thing then the program is not needed...

the argument falls apart..

thus C.

Here is what is wrong with B: 
Assumption is something that has to be necessarily true BUT which is not already stated in the argument. So if assumption is not true the argument will fall apart. (Negation test)

B- The medical expenses incurred by employees who are required to participate in the fitness program would be less than those incurred by employees who are not required to participate. 
# The medical expenses of fat-group don’t necessarily have to be lower than the fit group; even if their medical expenses are marginally lower than what they were before the exercise routine was mandated for them, we can justify the conclusion.

Whereas, if we negate C i.e. if the strenuous activity generates expenses greater than the potential savings, then we can’t justify implementing the exercise regime. C must be true and hence it is the answer

sayan640 · Answer

The conclusion is "since we must reduce our health-insurance costs, we should offer a rigorous fitness program of jogging and weight lifting to all employees, and require employees who are out of shape to participate."

Option B if negated ,

The medical expenses incurred by employees who are required to participate in the fitness program ( The Fat group) would NOT be less than those incurred by employees who are not required to participate ( the Fit group ). It means that the medical expenses would be equal or the fat group is going to have greater medical expenses . If the medical expenses are high then the conclusion follows i.e "we should offer a rigorous fitness program of jogging and weight lifting to all employees, and require employees who are out of shape to participate."
The conclusion follows even after negating the option B. So option B can not be the assumption.

Option C if negated ,
The strenuous activities required of out-of-shape employees by the program would by themselves generate medical expenses greater than any reduction achieved by the program.

If the out of shape employees ( the fat group) get some injuries and if those injuries generate medical expenses greater than the reduction 
then the conclusion can not follow .

Option C is the assumption.
Please give me kudo s if you liked my explanation.

ritwikk2 · Answer

Can this be a possible assumption:
"Employees in shape are not more likely to utilize the health benefits than are employees who are out of shape."

ramlala · Answer

The motive of Personnel officer is to reduce the medical expenses. If he propose the fitness program, it means additional expeses to company. But if these additional expenses can help to reduce earlier medical expenses more, than it is benefitial to company and serve the purpose of Personnel officer.

C perfectly conveys the above assumption.

aarkay87 · Answer

Hi,

In my process of elimination, I ended up with A & C as a contender option. In order to narrow down further, could you please share the negated statements for both options? and discuss why A is not the right answer?

maelstrom93 · Answer

(B) The medical expenses incurred by employees who are required to participate in the fitness program would be less than those incurred by employees who are not required to participate.

This is wrong.
If the medical expenses of fit and unfit increase by 10% over the years while the expenses of unfit is $1 lesser than fit, how is the overall expenses going to reduce.

C is going specific by noting there is saving.

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Personnel officer: The exorbitant cost of our health-insurance benefit

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