Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Alex Yaney
FYC 13100
22 February 2011
Throughout the 2008 presidential election and continuing into President Obama’s current
administrative term, the greatest and most controversial debates among political pundits, not to
mention America as a whole, have centered around one thing: an American universal healthcare
system. Debates and speeches on this topic have taken over political rallies, city council
meetings, and more than one State of the Union Address. These arguments are heated by a
cornucopia of questions surrounding universal healthcare, such as its cost to tax payers, decrease
in compensation for doctors, and even whether or not healthcare is a basic right for all people or
simply a privilege only to be held by those who can afford it. Nevertheless, universal healthcare
is not an issue pertaining solely to the United States. Numerous countries have tried or plan to
employ such a system. France, Argentina, Malaysia, India, Italy, Greece, Spain, and Canada are
only a few of the many countries that currently utilize this structure. One of the main reasons this
issue is so controversial in the United States is because while some countries’ plans have failed
miserably, others have flourished and even thrived. Sheenan Porter and Dr. Robert D. Harris are
only two examples of the millions of individuals that disagree on this issue. While Porter
believes that any form of government-run healthcare can be nothing but detrimental to a nation
that prides itself as being “the home of the free,” Harris champions universal healthcare as an
imminent necessity. Understanding the use of rhetoric in this debate is crucial in forming a well-
informed opinion on the controversial issue of universal healthcare in America. Although both
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Porter and Harris attempt to employ Aristotle’s three keys of argumentation, ethos, logos, and
pathos, upon further analysis of both pieces, it is evident that Harris has formulated the better
argument.
First off, in order to form any argument effectively, one must first know the subject
matter he or she is arguing and be able to portray this knowledge to the reader. This is where
Aristotle’s concept of ethos takes hold. Three main points of ethos are the portrayal of
trustworthiness, experience, and competence. It is the manner in which the author portrays these
qualities that determines how he is received by his audience. For example, readers are much
more likely to acknowledge and possibly accept a writer’s opposing point of view if they are
confident that the writer knows what he is talking about. Nonetheless, in order to be most
effective, ethos must be present throughout an entire argument, not just at the beginning, so that
readers hold the author in high regard throughout the entire debate and have confidence that the
author knows what he or she is arguing. It is clear when examining Porter and Harris’s articles
that each individual goes about establishing and maintaining ethos in two drastically different
ways.
Throughout his entire article, “Arguments for Universal Health Access in the United
Roentgenology in early 2007, Harris masterfully utilizes the concept of ethos. For example, at the
very beginning of his article, Harris informs his audience of his credentials. By using the phrase
“as a radiologist” twice in the first two sentences, Harris makes it is easy for his readers, who are
most likely medically trained, to recognize his qualifications and assume that he understands the
coming medical transformation. After all, he is a doctor; and healthcare is a doctor’s business.
He declares that as a radiologist, he is trained to see things no other doctors can. Harris uses this
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statement to uphold the main point of his article: that he does not like what he “sees” for the
future of American healthcare without reform. The concept of “seeing”, which his audience can
clearly distinguish as a radiology-based trait due to their medical backgrounds, adds further
Still, even after these great appeals, Harris continues to establish ethos throughout the
article. He further emphasizes his credibility by calling all radiologists, himself included, to “add
our collective voices to the public outcry” for healthcare reform because he has realized through
his own experience that healthcare reform is a necessity. While some rhetoricians may argue that
this is more of an emotional appeal, the ethos aspect is so much grander. This call for action is
much more an appeal that depends on ethos than it is a purely emotional tactic. Harris’s
audience could read this statement and recognize him as a great leader, deepening their respect
for him. Moreover, perhaps Harris’s most appealing portrayal of ethos occurs in the middle of
the article when he suggests “that all radiologists donate a small portion of their income (let's
say, for example, 10% for private practitioners and 5% for academicians) to help establish a
universal health access pool.” Through this statement, his audience can identify that there is no
financial incentive for him to support healthcare reform. In fact, it proves the exact opposite. He
would actually lose money, but he has made peace with this fact if it means people have access
to affordable healthcare. Readers can identify his compassion and relate to it, which allows
Harris to more easily sway their opinions. In addition, there is even more ethos established in
the last few lines of the article, when Harris makes another call to all doctors to come together to
fight the biotechnology and health insurance companies that “will certainly fight this attempt as
they have done in the past.” Through this call to arms, Harris enables readers to see his devotion
to healthcare reform, which in turn allows for further persuasive credence on Harris’s part. As
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one can see, Harris did an excellent job getting his audience to see that he is an extremely
On the exact opposite side of the spectrum of great depiction of ethos is the article “The
Argument Against Universal Healthcare,” which was written by Sheenan Porter and published in
Ezine Articles in 2007. Needless to say, the target audience for Porter’s article is much different
from that of Dr. Harris’s. Because Ezine Articles is supported by a health insurance company, it
is inherently biased on the issue of healthcare reform and thus would likely gear to a more biased
audience. Unlike Dr. Harris, Porter's portrayal of ethos can be described as pitiful at best. In fact,
he makes no real claim to have any authority in the subject until the last two lines of the article,
where he states that he has worked with Ameriplan and dental discounts for several years.
However, this minute appeal to ethos is poorly placed and nearly meaningless. By failing to even
attempt to form a rapport with readers or build any credence for himself until the last few lines,
Porter gave his readers time to formulate their own opinion of him. However even if they had not
formulated any such opinion, they may have stopped reading, thus completely missing this single
appeal to ethos anyway. Instead of trying to build confidence in his readers, Porter opted to
simply jump straight into his argument, which is undoubtedly more emotionally fueled than
anything. It is clear that Porter’s argument would have been much more effective had he
established himself as an authority in the subject by including more references to his expertise
earlier in the article. Plainly, Sheenan Porter holds drastically different credence to the
Along with ethos, logos is a key component in any decent argument. Logos is an
argument based on logic. It is the facts, data, and any reason-based arguments writers pursue in
their writing in order to appeal to their audience. In other words, logos is the proof that authors
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utilize to get others to believe and support their opinions. However, not all appeals to logic are
correct in their undertaking. These irrational appeals to logic are known as logical fallacies.
When examining the use of logos by both Harris and Porter, it is obvious that Harris has done a
better job of incorporating true, logical appeals to logos than Porter, who utilizes numerous
Upon analysis of Dr. Harris’s article, it is clear that he understands the significance of
logos. His article is bursting with various facts and figures that support his claim that healthcare
able to digest and comprehend all of his logical appeals. For instance, right away, he cited the
number of Americans without healthcare as “46 million (and growing).” Through this statement,
Harris hopes to get readers to realize how global and far-reaching a problem healthcare really is.
He attributes this large number to problems that his audience regularly faces: rising insurance
costs, medical expenses increasing, and the expensive administrative body in the medical field.
Moreover, he furthers his use of logos by utilizing more startling figures throughout his piece.
For example, he quotes governmental sources stating that healthcare costs have jumped 73% in
the last five years while salaries have increased by only 15%. Clearly, this is an extremely
uneven percentage, which Harris employs to further push his agenda. Perhaps Harris’s most
logical appeal is his reference to the U.S. ranking number one in highest healthcare costs per
capita but only ranking number fifteen in “key health statistics.” Obviously, this fact is meant to
shock readers into thinking about the quality of American healthcare versus its cost. As
medically trained individuals, it is safe to assume Harris’s audience would believe that America
is the healthiest nation in the world because it is the number one spender on health. However,
this is nothing close to reality, which is what Harris successfully portrays. A final appeal to logos
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that Harris makes has to deal with a fear that many possess: the possibility of medical personnel
losing income with reformation. He counters this argument by declaring that even though per
patient revenue will be reduced, the number of patients seen will drastically increase. Harris
argues that with this increase would come more revenue, even with the reduced healthcare costs.
His acknowledgement and response to this counterargument is a way to assuage those members
of his audience employed in the medical field who may believe that with healthcare reform
would come a lower salary. It is evident through his use of various facts, statistics and medical
Yet again, it appears that Dr. Harris holds the use of another of Aristotle’s keys to
rhetoric, logos, in higher esteem than Porter, whose paper is teeming with logical fallacies. For
have tried this and failed.” This is known as an inductive fallacy. Basically, Porter is assuming
that just because other countries have tried similar systems and failed, the United States’ system
is bound to meet the same end. Clearly, the United States’ universal healthcare system is not
doomed to fail simply because other countries have tried similar systems and failed.
Furthermore, Porter commits another fallacy when he says that healthcare reform under the
government would lead to a lack of competition. One would think that a lower price, quality
healthcare plan would only increase competition, but Porter does not want his readers to believe
this. Instead, he tries to influence his readers by painting a negative image of the government
endangering the economy by putting all other health insurance providers in financial dismay. Yet
another misleading notion Porter declares is that the reason medical costs have risen so high is
because “we have already begun moving toward socialized healthcare for several years now.”
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Once again, this is Porter’s attempt to say that one thing caused another without any evidence or
proof.
Porter makes this same mistake over and over again throughout his article. For example,
he wrote “people on capital hill have never had to worry about healthcare and have no idea how
it works.” This is a rash generalization meant to enrage Porter’s audience. There is no way for
Porter to know whether or not “people on capital hill” understand healthcare. He cites no
research to support this claim. He simply states it as a fact. Porter’s argument would certainly
have been more persuasive if he had presented some form of data to prove any of these claims.
However, because he was writing to a biased audience, Porter most likely believed he did not
need to do this. As can be obviously seen, although Porter made numerous attempts to appeal to
logos in “The Argument Against Universal Healthcare”, these attempts can only be described as
misleading.
Some people may argue that I have emphasized these fallacies too much because of the
amount of fallacies I have noted within his article. However, it is clear that the majority of
Porter’s argument is based on these logically flawed points. Due to the bias of the publication
source and audience, it makes sense that Porter employed illogical notions to support his stance
on the issue of healthcare reform. The majority of Porter’s audience most likely already had a
strong opinion on this subject, so presenting concrete, convincing facts to support these already-
While both ethos and logos are extremely important in rhetoric, it is usually the use of
pathos that makes or breaks an argument. Unlike ethos and logos, pathos is the emotional aspect
of an argument. It is how a writer gets his audience to care about an issue. Oftentimes, appeals
to pathos allow an audience to identify with the writer’s feelings, which further enables the
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writer to influence them. When examining the writings of Dr. Harris and Sheenan Porter, it is
obvious that this is the only one of Aristotle’s keys to persuasion that both hold in high regard.
Dr. Harris’ “Arguments for Universal Health Access in the United States: A Radiologist's
argument. For instance, when introducing the topic, Harris lists the number of Americans
without healthcare as “46 million (and growing) people.” While his medically-savvy audience is
most likely aware of the growing problems with healthcare, Harris’s use of this number and the
additional phrase in parentheses is undoubtedly a means to get these readers to sympathize with
those affected by this crisis while also personalizing the issue with the insinuating “and growing”
statement. Furthermore, Harris personified pathos in his list of data from the federal government,
in which he cites the number of underinsured individuals in America. Yet again, this is an appeal
to personalize the healthcare issue to the thousands of medical personnel who have to deal with
inefficiency and waste,” Harris is clearly trying to evoke the strong sentiment people often feel
during a war. War is only waged over severe circumstances, so by comparing reform to a war,
Harris is attempting to express the extreme gravity of the healthcare controversy that his
audience faces every day. One of Harris’s solutions to increasing medical costs is to have doctors
pool a portion of their salaries into a fund for people who cannot afford certain medical
procedures. By declaring that “this sacrifice will be painful” for all doctors, Harris is trying to
arouse the desire to join “the fight” in the members of his audience who are not medical doctors
and encourage them to make some sacrifices of their own. Undoubtedly, as can be seen in his
word choice and phrasing, Harris acknowledges the position of pathos as one of the most
For the first and only time, like Dr. Harris, Sheenan Porter appears to understand the
important standing pathos should hold in an argument. Because he is addressing an audience that
is already strongly opposed to healthcare reform, Porter is able to play a sort of cat and mouse
game with his readers. For example, he tries to lull his audience into a false sense of security
when he refers to universal healthcare as “a dream come true for lots of families.” However,
right after this, Porter seems to take a turn in his mindset, saying that the costs of universal
healthcare greatly outweigh the benefits. The small second of hope readers attained from this
phrase is likely a metaphor for healthcare reform: sounding great in the beginning but ending up
terribly. Furthermore, he tries to summon the patriotic spirit of his readers when he says that
healthcare reform is wrong because it takes away the free market principle of competition which
is “one of the things that made this country great.” By appealing to this patriotic spirit, Porter
hoped to make it appear that any true American would be completely opposed to healthcare
reform. In turn, Porter’s audience would view this as a reaffirmation of their patriotic spirit.
Additionally, Porter tries to infuse his audience with sympathy for doctors who “have huge debts
to repay and big dreams of being successful.” Through evoking this compassion, Porter expected
his audience to feel poorly for doctors who are unable to earn the money “they deserve” because
of the government’s role in healthcare reform. This statement is used to solidify the opinion
many of Porter’s biased readers already possess: that the government is cruel and incapable of
successfully reforming the healthcare system. Likewise, Porter appealed to pathos when
discussing the monetary cost of this reform. It is obvious that Porter hoped to arouse a rage in his
audience by citing the unmistakably large price tag of reform, which U.S. citizens will one day
have to pay. In addition, Porter made one last appeal to pathos in the second to last paragraph of
his article, in which he declared his aspiration to live in a world where healthcare could be free.
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While, once again, it appears that Porter has abruptly changed his opinion, he followed this
statement with “but that is not the world we live in.” Plainly, this was an effort to tear down any
remaining positive beliefs his biased audience may have regarding healthcare reform.
In conclusion, while both Dr. Harris and Sheenan Porter utilize Aristotle’s persuasive
techniques of ethos, logos, and pathos, it is apparent that overall, Dr. Harris has comprised the
superior persuasive article. The analysis of pieces such as these allows for further understanding
of the rhetoric regarding healthcare reform that appears daily on the news and in newspapers and
city halls across the United States. The concept of healthcare reform is not going away anytime
soon, so understanding how politicians argue this issue is paramount in comprehending one of
Works Cited
Harris, Robert D. "Arguments for Universal Health Access in the United States: A Radiologist's
Porter, Sheenan. "The Argument Against Universal Healthcare." Ezine Articles. Ezine Healthcare
Appendix A
“Arguments for Universal Health Access in the United States: A Radiologist's Perspective”
http://www.ajronline.org/cgi/content/full/188/3/617