Sleep With The Fishes

So, one might ask, what is the defining characteristic of Mob Bidnezz? Extortion? Yo, you'll get your trash hauled by Vinny? And so forth. As discussed more than once in these endeavors, the primary reason for having a Damn Gummint (beyond the basic security issues) is for it to do that which the private sector won't or can't. Mostly, one might argue, this amounts to extracting from bidnezz the costs of externalities from the few and protecting the many.

The Sherman Antitrust act was, by most accounts, the first attempt to rein in bad bidnezz behavior. Here's a quote from the wiki, itself a quote from a Supreme Court ruling:

The purpose of the [Sherman] Act is not to protect businesses from the working of the market; it is to protect the public from the failure of the market. The law directs itself not against conduct which is competitive, even severely so, but against conduct which unfairly tends to destroy competition itself.

I expect that the increasing right-tilt will find a way to deny that obvious conclusion.

Well, today brings us another example of out of tune fiddling by The Manchurian President (Donnie fiddles while ...). Methinks the unintended consequences were intentional. After all, he made his money (however much it really is) by flummoxing local gummint.

And surprise, suprise there's a body of research showing that collusion in the open is cheaper, easier, and titularly legal:

The scholarship suggests that more transparency in health care could backfire, causing prices to rise instead of fall.
The Danish study in particular comes up a lot.
[here]

The punch line, from the reporting:

They could collude with the sort of direct communication that would make such behavior illegal.

Naturally, if your health care is from an HMO, you, as patient, have no say in who or how you get your care. Unless, naturally, you're willing to pay the vig of going 'out of network'.

Here's some data:

In a report released by the Health Care Payment Learning and Action Network (LAN), 43 percent of payments to health systems came from traditional fee-for-service (FFS) payment models in 2016, down from 62 percent the year before, while alternative payment models' (APMs) share increased from 23 percent to 29 percent.

All of the network based models coerce the patient into the organization's chosen providers. Period. And thus 'transparency' will lead to open collusion. A method familiar to The Manchurian President, of course. "Russia if you're listening..."