EK Verbal, Test 1, Passage IV, Question 23

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Hey Everyone,

So the question is:

According the the passage, the decisive factor in determining whether a patient in New York City will be turned away from the hospital is whether this person requiring care:

A. Has insurance or not (My choice.)
B. is poor or ederly.
C. has an extremely low income (Correct answer.)
D. Insists on receiving state-of-the-art treatments.

The relevant sections of the passage are:

"Much of the "savings" will fall onto the shoulders of New York City, which will have to scramble to subsidize costs for the poor and uninsured, who will be turned away from hospitals. ... Hospitals may opt not to turn away any and, in fact, will be prohibited from turning away certain extremely low income patients, whose right to certain emergence care is protected by teh state's Hill-Burton law.

So. My approach was as follows. The question asks for the decisive factor. This would be the factor that would affect the LARGEST number of people.

Let's look:
A) There would be a relatively large amount of people getting turned away.
B) Not necessarily true. Many poor and elderly have insurance. This is not a decisive factor.
C) This answer is ONLY decisive for the portion of the extremely poor portion of the uninsured poor population. It is not decisive for uninsured wealthier, and not decisive for an insured poor person (such as somebody working at a job who offers them reasonable insurance rates - Chipotle for example.) It is also not decisive for people who are poor, uninsured, and who DO NOT meet the requirements of the Hill-Burton law. Furthermore, as stated in the above section, this is only related to portions of "certain emergency care". Pretty small sliver.
D) Unrelated.

So, in short, i'm still confused why A is wrong and C is right. Examkrackers validifies it as follows:

C:Correct: Giving the italized reference to New York City (line 41), this same paragraph asserts that "Hospitals... will be prohibited from turning away certain extremely low income patients, whose right to certain emergency care is protected by the state's Hill-Burton law."

It states that A, B, and D are NOT specific to New York City. My response is, who cares? They're still relevant.

Any thoughts?

The passage says, if someone is low income they get treatment in certain situations, no ifs ands or buts. The passage does not say that the same is true if a patient lacks health insurance. That means that low income is the deciding factor in who gets certain treatments, not their health insurance or lack thereof.

The factor that would affect the LARGEST number of people.

is not what decisive means.

Exactly. So this is really a kind of "trick question." It's tricky because the reader may be thinking the question asks "who will likely NOT be treated." Well, there is no certainty that those with A, B, or D will or will not be "turned away." It's a crap shoot. But based on the NYC laws, the extremely poor (C) cannot be "turned away," so they (unlike the other categories) provide the correct answer (at least as far as this "Verbal Reasoning" game goes... In reality, those with good insurance (A) tend to not get turned away from hospitals. Welcome to the world of MCAT.

Originally Posted by cheesier

The passage says, if someone is low income they get treatment in certain situations, no ifs ands or buts. The passage does not say that the same is true if a patient lacks health insurance. That means that low income is the deciding factor in who gets certain treatments, not their health insurance or lack thereof.


is not what decisive means.