Recent dental research shows that bacteria around the gum line produces a substance that in sufficient amounts induces preterm labor in pregnant women and clogging of arteries, both of which add to payout by health insurers to medical-service providers. In response, one health insurance company has begun to provide additional dental benefits, including coverage for one additional cleaning by a professional hygienist or dentist each year, to pregnant women and to people proven to be at high risk of developing heart disease.
The insurance company's response described above would be most likely to minimize the company's payouts to medical-service providers if which of the following were also true?
A. Accumulation of the substance that induces preterm labor ca be prevented by daily use of certain inexpensive mouthwashes.
B. It often takes at least a year for the substance that induce clogging of the arteries to accumulate to a dangerous level.
C. The daily dental-hygiene habits of pregnant women and heart-disease patients, as a group, are similar to those of the general population.
D. The risk of developing heart disease is greater for individuals with a family history of heart disease than for those with no such history.
E. The medical costs associated with preterm labor are generally less than those associated with heart disease.
And the answer is...
"The correct response is (D). Providing additional benefits to a particular “high risk” group in order to reduce payout risk later works only if the insurance company can identify who is in the group to begin with. That’s why (D), which tells us that it’s easy to identify individuals at high risk of heart disease, lends support to the company’s response (assuming, of course, that the company wants to minimize payouts, which is given in the argument). "
I honestly did bad on this question. I chose E. After reading the answer, I realized that I misread the question.
Remember, practice makes perfect(or close to perfection)!
How did you do?
Credits: West.net
