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Hypertensive population

by ssgmatter » Tue Jun 22, 2010 6:55 am
Treatment for hypertension forestalls certain medical expenses by preventing strokes
and heart disease. Yet any money so saved amounts to only one-fourth of the
expenditures required to treat the hypertensive population. Therefore, there is no
economic justification for preventive treatment for hypertension.
Which of the following, if true, is most damaging to the conclusion above?
A. The many fatal stroke and heart attacks resulting from untreated hypertension
cause insignificant medical expenditures but large economic losses of other
sorts.
B. The cost, per patient, of preventive treatment for hypertension would remain
constant even if such treatment were instituted on a large scale.
C. In matters of health care, economic considerations should ideally not be
dominant.
D. Effective prevention presupposes early diagnosis, and programs to ensure early
diagnosis are costly.
E. The net savings in medical resources achieved by some preventive health
measures are smaller than the net losses attributable to certain other measures
of this kind.
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Amit
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by gmatmachoman » Tue Jun 22, 2010 7:18 am
Phil bhai,

Pick C

Conclusion: there is no economic justification for preventive treatment for hypertension.

Here the assumption is some weightage is given to economic factors for preventive treatment. Now C says that

Dont give economic weightage when it comes to health care issue.

C attacks the assumptions directly & thereby weakening the conclusion .

Weakening in most cases always happen at the assumption level. SO identify the hidden assumption.




Coming to A....It may look attractive. Bit it talks about expenditure incurred for heart attacks and not about expenditure of untreated HT.
U can call them as subtle scope shift/detractor
Last edited by gmatmachoman on Tue Jun 22, 2010 7:38 am, edited 1 time in total.
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by nikhilkatira » Tue Jun 22, 2010 7:37 am
gmatmachoman wrote:Phil bhai,

Pick C

Conclusion: there is no economic justification for preventive treatment for hypertension.

Apply denial test to C

C. In matters of health care, economic considerations should ideally not be
dominant

After applying the Denail Test :

C. In matters of health care, economic considerations should ideally be
dominant

So it comes to our understanding now that some weightage is given to economic factors when it comes to medical care.
This directly affects the stated conclusion!!

In weaken type CR

1. Identify Conclusion
2. See if u can apply Denial test
3.APply the test
4.Chk if it weakens the conclusion die hard..
5.pick it &move on!!

Coming to A....It may look attractive. Bit it talks about expenditure incurred for heart attacks and not about expenditure of untreated HT.
U can call them as subtle scope shift/detractor

Bhai but " health care " considers all treatment but the argument talks about only treatment of hyper tension.

ssgmatter thanks you brought this question...I am also not able to understand the reasoning given in OG 10
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by gmatmachoman » Tue Jun 22, 2010 7:44 am
nikhilkatira wrote:
gmatmachoman wrote:Phil bhai,

Pick C

Conclusion: there is no economic justification for preventive treatment for hypertension.

Apply denial test to C

C. In matters of health care, economic considerations should ideally not be
dominant

After applying the Denail Test :

C. In matters of health care, economic considerations should ideally be
dominant

So it comes to our understanding now that some weightage is given to economic factors when it comes to medical care.
This directly affects the stated conclusion!!

In weaken type CR

1. Identify Conclusion
2. See if u can apply Denial test
3.APply the test
4.Chk if it weakens the conclusion die hard..
5.pick it &move on!!

Coming to A....It may look attractive. Bit it talks about expenditure incurred for heart attacks and not about expenditure of untreated HT.
U can call them as subtle scope shift/detractor

Bhai but " health care " considers all treatment but the argument talks about only treatment of hyper tension.

ssgmatter thanks you brought this question...I am also not able to understand the reasoning given in OG 10

nikhil bhai,

my doubt is whether the "medical expenditures " corresponds to heart attacks or the untreated HT???

I assumed it is for heart attacks..so dismiised it...plz chk those wording of A
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by ssgmatter » Tue Jun 22, 2010 7:47 am
gmatmachoman wrote:
nikhilkatira wrote:
gmatmachoman wrote:Phil bhai,

Pick C

Conclusion: there is no economic justification for preventive treatment for hypertension.

Apply denial test to C

C. In matters of health care, economic considerations should ideally not be
dominant

After applying the Denail Test :

C. In matters of health care, economic considerations should ideally be
dominant

So it comes to our understanding now that some weightage is given to economic factors when it comes to medical care.
This directly affects the stated conclusion!!

In weaken type CR

1. Identify Conclusion
2. See if u can apply Denial test
3.APply the test
4.Chk if it weakens the conclusion die hard..
5.pick it &move on!!

Coming to A....It may look attractive. Bit it talks about expenditure incurred for heart attacks and not about expenditure of untreated HT.
U can call them as subtle scope shift/detractor

Bhai but " health care " considers all treatment but the argument talks about only treatment of hyper tension.

ssgmatter thanks you brought this question...I am also not able to understand the reasoning given in OG 10

nikhil bhai,

my doubt is whether the "medical expenditures " corresponds to heart attacks or the untreated HT???

I assumed it is for heart attacks..so dismiised it...plz chk those wording of A
Bhaiyon,

iska OA is A......
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by gmatmachoman » Tue Jun 22, 2010 7:47 am
A. The many fatal stroke and heart attacks resulting from untreated hypertension
cause insignificant medical expenditures but large economic losses of other
sorts.

@nikhi bhai

there is a Subject verb agreement between fatal stroke/heart attacks and "cause" (Plural SV agreement)

So i am of the opinion the medical expenditure corresponds to heart attacks.

I think i am missing something big time....help me!
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by gmatmachoman » Tue Jun 22, 2010 7:48 am
Phil bhai..

abhi check kiya..but i am not convinced..
wats ur take???
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by ssgmatter » Tue Jun 22, 2010 8:04 am
gmatmachoman wrote:Phil bhai..

abhi check kiya..but i am not convinced..
wats ur take???
Bhai,

like you i am also confused...waiting for the experts to throw some light on the logic behind the CR....
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by nikhilkatira » Tue Jun 22, 2010 8:52 am
ssgmatter wrote:
gmatmachoman wrote:Phil bhai..

abhi check kiya..but i am not convinced..
wats ur take???
Bhai,

like you i am also confused...waiting for the experts to throw some light on the logic behind the CR....
guys i guess" cause" refers to " many stroke and heart attacks"

but can we eliminate option C on the basis of "general statement" on health care ?
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by DanaJ » Wed Jun 23, 2010 8:39 am
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Weird argument... Doesn't make that much sense to me...

So its structure is the following:
- treating hypertension postpones other medical costs because it prevents heart disease
- the money saved by treating hypertension is only 1/4 of the money needed to treat the hypertensive population
- conclusion: there is no economic reason behind treating hypertension

So to my understanding, you save some money by preventing heart disease and strokes, but the amount you save is not big enough to cover the expenses for everyone suffering from hypertension. You have a classical case of costs and benefits and net effect:
- costs: treatment of hyperension
- benefits: money saved because of the preventive treatment of hypertension
- net effect: benefits - costs --- the argument says it's not big enough to justify treating hypertension. We are looking for options that contradict this, i.e. either make benefits higher or costs lower

A is the best answer choice here because there are indeed economic losses if you do not treat hypertension. A says that untreated hypertension ---> fatal heart disease & strokes ---> economic losses not related to the medical field. So there is economic justification for treating hypertension.

B somehow supports the argument, since it contends that economies of scale would not occur should a program be instituted for the treatment of hypertension. This is actually a statement that tells us that the costs would remain the same. We are interested in a statement that says that costs will either be reduced or benefits will be increased (so that the net effect would be higher).

C is irrelevant to the argument since the argument explicitly mentions economic justifications and we should be concerned with that. I know it's the more "humane" option, but you need to put your feelings aside for the moment!

D is another option that concerns costs, specifically it mentions their increase. Again, this is contrary to what we're looking for.

E says that benefits of preventive measures < costs of preventive measures. This has a negative impact on the net effect, so E actually strengthens the argument.
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by missionGMAT007 » Wed Jun 23, 2010 10:32 am
IMO A is the correct answer
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by Testluv » Wed Jun 23, 2010 5:05 pm
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Dana's reasoning is spot-on.

Whenever the conclusion is extreme, you want to take note of that--the more ambitious the argument, the harder it is for the arguer to support it. And if the conclusion is extreme, then a weakener will likely be very direct.

The conclusion is that there is NO economic justificaton for prevention of hypertension. His evidence is, roughly, the cost of preventative treatment may outweigh the savings (for every 4 dollars spent on such preventative treatment only 1 dollar is saved).

We want to weaken either by attacking the assumption or by finding a choice that directly makes the conclusion less likely to be true (in general, these are the 2 ways we can weaken an argument).

Choice A directly renders the conclusion less likely to be true. He is concluding that there is NO economic justification for preventative treatment of hypertension. Choice A tells us that UNTREATED hypertension leads to large economic losses (of some sort--doesn't matter what sort). Thus, choice A tells that there IS economic justification for preventative treatment of hypertension.

Either choice B is irrelevant or as DanaJ points out we can read it as a slight strengthener since it tells us that cost per patient doesn't scale down as we add orders of magnitudes of patients--to use microeconomics lingo, there's no economies of scale. (Don't worry if you don't see this--we don't have to use outside knowledge, and because of its ambiguity this choice--right or wrong--wouldn't have shown up in an strengthen question).

I can see why choice C may have tempted some. But even if economc considerations should't be dominant doesn't necessarily mean that the arguer's conclusion isn't correct--it would just mean that it may be less important than he thinks. This choice is outside the scope.

Choice D clearly strengthens as it tells us prevention is costly thereby bolstering his claim that there isn't economic justification for prevention.

As DanaJ concisely points out choice E is another strengthener.
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