maive wrote:
I understand why C is correct. It was my first choice..
But I don't understand why E is wrong!! If the budget is cut by more than 180 million, the plan will not work anyway..no?
Please help!!
But I don't understand why E is wrong!! If the budget is cut by more than 180 million, the plan will not work anyway..no?
Please help!!
Here's what the author wants to say in the argument:
1. The government agency has had some budget cuts (we don't know how much)
2. To save money, the government agency plans to delay the reimbursement by 40 days
>> Condition 1: no reimbursement to be cut
>> Condition 2: Not harming the clients financially
3. By implementing the plan, the government agency will earn around 180 Million dollars per year
The question stem asks us to provide criticism for the author's argument, i.e. if the below-mentioned answer choices are considered true, which one will most likely attack the author's argument that by implementing the plan, the government agency will be able to save money WITHOUT reimbursement cuts or without harm to the clients financially
Answer choices:
(A) Hospitals and physicians typically hold patients responsible for the ultimate payment of their bills.
> This does not say anything about the main argument in context. Even if the patients are held responsible for the ultimate payment and there is a delay of 40 days from the agency, we are not informed if this delay of 40 days puts the patients in soup or not. Maybe the hospitals and physicians are aware of the 40-day-delay and are not expecting the patients to pay earlier
(B) The agency cannot save money by cutting staff because it is already understaffed.
> This statement says that the agency cannot save money by cutting staff and therefore the plan suggested by the author is the only option to earn money. There could be n number of different ways by which the agency could save money. One such thing could be increasing the funding from tax. Therefore, this answer choice is incorrect
(C) Some clients borrow money to pay their medical bills; they will pay forty extra days of interest on these loans.
> If this is true then the author's claim (condition 2) that the clients should not be financially harmed does not hold true anymore. Hence, this is a valid criticism of the argument
(D) Some clients pay their medical bills immediately, but they often take more than forty days to file with the agency for reimbursement.
> Again, this does not say anything about the impact of implementing the plan. It just says that the clients are eventually going to end up with a delay in payment of up to 80 days (40 days delay for the filing and 40 days delay for the reimbursement). If this is true, then it is indicative that the clients are not very concerned about the timely reimbursement of the claim and are okay to have that delay. This in turn indicates that the clients are not going to be financially harmed. If at all, this answer choice supports the author's claim. hence, it is incorrect
(E) The agency’s budget was cut by more than $180 million last year.
> Now this is a trap question. This looks very attractive at first because it has 'data' to give us a perspective. But here's why this answer choice is wrong -
1. The author of the argument is not concerned about the actual amount of money. Had it been the case, the author's main conclusion would have included this information. Right now it just says that "thereby earning $180 million per year in interest"
2. The answer choices like this are more often than not traps. Think of it as this - do we know how much more than 180 Million dollars was the budget-cut? Was it 180 million and 1 dollar or 5000 million dollars? If in case it was 180 Million 1 dollars, then the budget-cut was more and the plan would most likely work, but if the budget-cut was 5000 million dollars then it wouldn't work. Hence, this is an ambiguous answer choice.
Hope the explanation helps
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