Adam S.--First of all, my analogy was not off or misleading. Your concept of how ER triage system work is, from my observation, signinificantly off. This opinion o mine is based, in part, on my two experiences in the last three months in Urgent Care (granted, it's not an ER, but the same sort of triage principals should have applied). Each time, I was in on a Saturday morning, with a kid who had developed a sickness during the night, which I suspected would require prescription medication to treat. Their regular doctor's office was closed--one time until Monday, and one time until Tuesday (because of a holiday). I wanted to start the treatment sooner, so I went to urgent care. Both times, a point was reached where we were the only patient in the waiting room. And each time, another patient came in with medical needs far greater than my child's--one had lopped off a finger on a table saw, the other was experiencing chest pains. And BOTH times, the doctors/nurses attempted to see my child first. Each time, I actually had to INSIST on waiting longer, just so the more urgent need could be addressed--but they had to violate their standard triaging practices to do this! If I hadn't spoken up to let a little logic take control, these other patients would have needed to wait until my kids' illnesses (one was strep, and one was the start of influenza) were diagnosed and treated!
Also, your use of the "strawman" concept is flawed. A strawman is not based on a false or deliberately inflammatory premise. It is a crude plan, meant to be refined into or replaced by something more substantial--but it is written as a theoretical proposal to see if its basic premise holds enough weight to support something more. It may turn out to be based on a false premise, but that is not known at the time, which is why it is being proposed for further testing and critiquing. More often than not, the people proposing a strawman concept know enough about the subject matter covered that their proposals are found to be at least partly, if not fully, legitimate. And because of this critiquing/evolving process, they're never deliberately inflammatory--such action would only guarantee their failure. See the link below.
