July 28, 2024

Dr. Michael Goldstein has been endorsed by "Stand for Health Freedom” an organization fighting high health care costs and loss of patient choices.

Why?

Because this organization understands the reasons behind skyrocketing health care costs in Fairfield County - forced consolidation of doctors by venture capital groups, insurance companies and hospitals. This has resulted in an army of bureaucrats and administrators making huge salaries while sitting in front of computers and harassing doctors with endless pre-approval forms for permission of sick patients to receive medications, diagnostic tests and specialty referrals.

Below is Dr. Goldstein’s recent interview (shortened for clarity) by Greenwich reporter Scott Benjamin detailing solutions.

Consolidated health-care market drives up costs

Posted Fri, Apr 26, 2024

By Scott Benjamin

GREENWICH – If you go to buy a Zegna suit at Richards of Greenwich, or walk the sidewalks near Total Mortgage Arena in Bridgeport, or the farms in Oxford or the corporate headquarters in Shelton, Michael Goldstein says voters are concerned about soaring health care costs.

Goldstein said that according to figures discussed at the Greenwich Representative Town Meeting, a body that he serves on, the typical family there spends $39,000 a year on their health care insurance plan.

So, if George W. Bush signed the Medicare reform package with the prescription drug coverage for non-hospitalized senior citizens in 2003, which updated Lyndon Johnson’s program of 1965 . . . If Barack Obama approved the Affordable Care Act in 2010 – something that had been discussed since Harry Truman’s administration in 1945. . . If Joe Biden signed legislation in 2022 to cap out-of-pocket costs for insulin for senior citizens and saved money on 47 drugs covered by Medicare, which the Democrats had been clamoring for since at least the 2006 midterms . . . Then why are health care costs still soaring?

“A lot of it has been related to regulation and health care consolidation. We have seen the disappearance of private practitioners,” commented Goldstein, a longtime Greenwich resident.

He insisted that the anti-trust laws need to be reformed.

“[It has resulted from] The mergers and acquisitions of community-based hospitals and private practices,” Goldstein explained in an interview with Patch.com. “[There also have been] Venture capital acquisitions of practices.”

“Everything in health care is related to market share,” remarked Goldstein, who served as president for the New York County Medical Society for two terms. “A large hospital system gets paid more from an insurance company than individual practitioners for doing exactly the same thing. As health care systems consolidate, prices go up.”

Goldstein said that the increased “regulatory compliance” has forced physicians to spend “20 hours a week putting data into a computer instead of treating patients.”

He estimates that deregulation could trim $1 trillion a year nationally in health care costs.