▶ Your Answer :
In the reading passage, the writer points out a negative aspect of funding for medical research and public health care, because it has a risk to affect nation's economy adversely and cause a rise in unemployment. The argument is, from one perspective, persuasive if we consider the side effect of funding governmental expenditure to public health care, which may give harmful effect on economic growth. However, to make his thought more convincing, the author must give more detailed information.
First of all, the statistics that the writer mentions is uncertain whether it reveals the causal relationships between the death rate and employment status. To be specific, we can rightly assume that unemployed people are already prone to have severe disease, that is, too sick to have a job. In this circumstance, even if the economic situations improve and job opportunities increase, they cannot take the job due to pre-existed bad health condition. Therefore, to make the writer's argument reasonable, he must analyse that if someone is on the unemployed circumstance for a long time, he or she is likely to become ill and result in death. By doing so, his argument that unemployment is a significant health issue becomes persuasive.
Second, it is indeed true that there are some trade-off relationships between funding for public health and funding to create a job. This is a kind of debate between welfare and growth. The writer assumes that investing government budgets to medical research or public health program will cause to decrease in boosting the economy. However, many economists have insisted the contrast views. For instance, Nobel economics prize laureate Paul Krugman said in his article in the Journal of Public Economics, "Americans have witnessed the positive relationship between promoting health care program and boosting economic growth. It seems that by improving the quality of health with government funding, people are more likely to spend less money on treating disease and prefer to consume goods and services, which leads to economic growth and enhance job prospects." If this is the case, the writer's views on welfare vs. growth issue is myopic and should be modified.
What the writer argues in the reading passage, 'A healthy economy means health citizens', clearly show crucial aspect of human society. If people's health conditions become better, the chances of economic growth will increase and, fundamentally there will be more available jobs. However, to prove this logic, the writer should give more detailed analysis about the causal relationship between the death rate and the unemployed, and correlation between funding for public health and increasing employment rate. By doing so, the author's argument can be cogent, reasonable, and persuasive.
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