【正确答案】 D

【答案解析】Argument Construction
Situation Some of the greatest societal expenses arise from frequent urgent-care needs for people who have reached old age thanks to preventive medical care. But society also suffers economic loss when my of its productive members suffer preventable illnesses.
Reasoning What is Sunil assuming in his argument that Jays argumentfailst'Jay implies that by helping people live longer, expanding preventive medical care may actually increase the amount of urgent medical care people need over the course of their lives, and that societal expenses for this additional urgent care may equal or exceed any societal economic benefits from expanding preventive care. Sunil responds by implying that expanding preventive care would allow society to avoid economic losses from lost productivity caused by preventable illnesses. In order for Sunil's argument to establish that Jay's argument fails, the potential economic benefits that Sunil implies would arise from expanded preventive care must be greater than the economic losses from the increased need for urgent care that Jay points out.
A This is not an assumption that underpins Sunil's suggestion that the societal economic benefits from expanded preventive care may exceed any resulting economic losses from urgent care.
B If Jay intends the phrase "economic gains" to refer only to gains within the health care system, then Sunil's point about economic gains outside the health care system is not even relevant to Jay's argument about economic gains within it.
C Even if productive members of society are not more likely than others to suffer preventable illnesses, it still may be true, as Sunil suggests, that the economic benefits of preventing productive members of society from suffering those illnesses may outweigh the economic losses of doing so. In that case, Jay's argument could still fail in the way Sunil indicates.
D Correct. Sunil must assume this in order to rebut Jay's argument. As explained above, if the economic contributions of those receiving preventive care definitely do not outweigh the economic losses caused by preventive care, then Sunil's implicit point that expanding preventive care would help to prevent the loss of such contributions is insufficient to rebut Jay's argument.
E Whether Jay is correct or incorrect in this respect, Sunil may be correct that Jay's argument fails because Jay has neglected to consider how preventive care produces larger economic gains outside the health care system.
The correct answer is D.