PrepTest 134, Section 2, Question 8
Journalist: To reconcile the need for profits sufficient(84 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(10 more words not shown)
- APeople who are(14 more words not shown)
- BWealthy institutions have(17 more words not shown)
- CWhether one deserves(17 more words not shown)
- DThe people in(17 more words not shown)
- EUnequal access to(11 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
A poor person doesn't become able to afford medicine just by living in a rich country.
The companies are trying to address two real concerns: earning enough to support new research and making drugs available to people who need them but can't afford them. Charging different prices might sound like a way to do both. The journalist's objection is to using the country as the dividing line.
Imagine someone struggling financially in a wealthy nation while a comfortable middle-class resident of a poorer nation can afford the drug. The proposed pricing system charges the first person more and the second person less. The national averages don't tell us which of those two people needs help.
What we’re looking for
To support the journalist, I'd want a principle saying that the person's own needs should determine special treatment. Look at the individual, rather than assuming the wealth of the surrounding society settles the question.
Working the answers
- A
The dispute isn't about whether sick people deserve more consideration than healthy people. It concerns which people needing medicine should get lower prices. Giving priority to illness doesn't tell us whether a patient's country or personal circumstances should determine that discount.
- B
We aren't told that the pharmaceutical companies are wealthy institutions. More importantly, even if they are, a duty to help those unable to help themselves doesn't settle how they should identify those people. The companies could accept that duty and still use the national pricing system the journalist criticizes.
- CCorrect
This makes personal need the basis for special consideration, rather than a characteristic of the person's society. Lower drug prices are the special consideration here, and national wealth is the social characteristic. A national average can conceal the poor resident of a rich country and the better-off resident of a poor country. C explains why that average is the wrong basis for deciding who deserves help.
- D
This compares access across wealthy and poor nations. It doesn't address the journalist's concern that individuals within each nation have different needs. In fact, the companies could offer their lower prices in poor nations as an attempt to improve access there while still using the approach the journalist rejects.
- E
We don't need to rank two kinds of inequality. Even if unequal access to health care is worse than unequal wealth, we still have to decide whether a country's average income is a justified basis for charging a patient more or less. E gives no rule connecting that decision to the patient's own needs.
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