City Official: At City Hospital, uninsured patients tend to have shorter stays and fewer procedures performed than do insured patients, even though insured patients, on average, have slightly less serious medical problems at the time of admission to the hospital than uninsured patients have. Critics of the hospital have concluded that the uninsured patients are not receiving proper medical care. However, this conclusion is almost certainly false. Careful investigation has recently shown two things: insured patients have much longer stays in the hospital than necessary, and they tend to have more procedures performed than are medically necessary.

In the city official's argument, the two boldface portions play which of the following roles?

From the Civil War to soldiers in Vietnam, Smith & Wesson, the legendary arms maker, equipped both the soldiers and the sailors who have fought America's wars.

In order to properly evaluate a patient's state of mind and gain informed consent prior to surgery, a substantial period of time must be spent with the operating physician by the patient to become fully aware of the pros and cons of undergoing a surgical procedure.

According to a 1996 survey by the National Association of College and University Business Officers, more than three times as many independent institutions of higher education charge tuition and fees of under $8,000 a year than those that charge over $16,000.

Discussion of greenhouse effects has usually focused on whether the earth would warm and by how much, but climatologists have indicated all along that the most obvious effects, and those that would have the largest impact on people, would be extremes of temperature, precipitation, and storminess.

A Swiss government panel recommended that the country sell about half its gold reserves and this raised fears of other countries that do the same and inundate the market.