The primary hospital in the town of Riverton has been criticized for declining to accept patients who do not have insurance or who have insufficient insurance to cover their medical care at the hospital. Responding to the criticism, the mayor of Riverton has denounced the hospital for discrimination and demanded that the policy be revised. The mayor has also encouraged the city council to pass an ordinance requiring hospitals to accept all patients, regardless of insurance coverage. The city council has declined, however, arguing that as a private business the hospital has the right to refuse customers who are unable to pay for hospital services.
Which of the following assumptions can be inferred from the city council’s argument that the hospital has a right to decline treatment to patients?
The passage is all about hospital rejecting patients without enough insurance coverage and even though mayor denounced the hospital, the city council took a decision in favour of the hospital.
(A) The
majority of residents in the town of Riverton
have sufficient insurance coverage, so there will be very few patients who are refused service. - WRONG. Few or more it doesn't matter, patients are still rejected.
(B) The city council
believes that
anti-discrimination laws do not cover a hospital refusing service to patients who are unable to pay for their medical services. - CORRECT.
(C) The uninsured and insufficiently insured patients will be
covered by state and federal funding, so the hospital will ultimately not need to turn patients away. - WRONG. Irrelevant.
(D) There is a
large hospital in a town very
near to Riverton that accepts all patients regardless of their insurance coverage. - WRONG. Again irrelevant.
(E) The mayor is a member of a different political party than most members of the city council, so they tend to oppose him on every recommendation he makes. - WRONG. Totally out of scope.
in B, frankly, the two highlighted words made me reject is at the first instance. However, after going through all the options option B looked better in all aspects. I mean why one would be bothered what city council believes and that about anti-discrimination laws which is nowhere mentioned in the passage. At best, it looked irrelevant to talk about these two things.
Answer B.