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Unhealth Indivisible Summary

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The Pickens Democrats and Appalachian Indivisible healthcare forum drew a surprising crowd of more than 60 people to Chattahoochee Tech considering Thursday was a rainy night during summer vacation. More surprising was the number and depth of the questions. The audience wanted to talk minutiae of national healthcare with the panel of three healthcare speakers and one congressional candidate. Marie Head from Appalachian Indivisible said the turnout shows the topic is universal; it’s an issue that people want to learn about and need to talk about, she said. “I am surprised by the turnout,” she said. “We knew we’d get our members out but we got a lot more.” John Frech, a retired business executive who researches healthcare options and pens …show more content…

He used an example that it would be like two car dealerships on the same road each selling the same model, but one charges twice as much and has no explanation to give customers. There is a misconception, Frech said, that all other countries have socialized medicine or use the same system, but that is far from true. The other countries do have two things in common: they all have universal coverage and they are all less expensive than the U.S. He also cited examples of how the United States has an unbelievably fragmented healthcare system in the country, particularly in terms of cost. For example, he said insurance premiums in the Seattle area have dropped under the ACA while they have gone up in Nashville. Medicaid spends considerably less per capita in Minnesota than Texas with no obvious cause of the discrepancy. Frech cited several keys to the high costs here including marketing by pharmaceutical companies; the incredible number (around 20 percent) of the people who work in the medical field but never come into contact with any patient and the lack of wellness programs and poor lifestyle

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