[gizmo686]

>it can't be always easy to define how much a treatment would cost without actually doing it.

Actually, it can be very easy. Quote a price prior to treatment and you are not allowed to charge more. Providers will lose money on some treatments, but on a large scale that can be predicted and rolled into the average price.

If there is a small provider, or particular treatment with high financial downside risk to the provider that the uncertainty is potentially crippling for the provider, then the provider can take out insurance to cover their loss if the treatment turned out to be far more expensive than originally anticipated.

[Spooky23]

In my state, movers are regulated like this. The result? Everything has a 30% error margin.

That approach is why the $10 test costs $400. Medicaid mandates $10.01 payment, and selling it to someone for less than that is a crime (fraud). Everyone else gets a percent off of list.

[gizmo686]

Everything already has an error margin. The difference is that the entire error margin is paid by the unlikely few who turned to cost more than expected. The point is to reduce risk by spreading the cost between those unlucky enough to have incurred extra with the rest of the patients.

If the actual cost of covering the unexpected costs is less than the margin they are tacking on, then that is simply over charging, and is not meaningfully different from the overcharging they can do anyway.

[Spooky23]

Show me an example of a price ceiling that doesn’t raise prices.

[gizmo686]

Interesting complaint. The common downside of price ceilings is that they prevent raising prices, leading to shortages.

Regardless, I am not proposing a price ceiling, I am proposing determining the price prior to rendering services.

[Spooky23]

They do that too, but given a ceiling of $1, the vendors who sold the widget for $0.95 will raise the price.