The UAE is cracking down on merchants who ‘arbitrarily’ raise prices.
Via Gulf News:
Dubai: The UAE government will take tough action against retailers found engaging in price manipulation or hiking the prices of products or services without prior permission from the Ministry of Economy, a senior official has said.
Dr Hashim Saeed Al Nuaimi, director-general of the Consumer Protection Department in the Ministry of Economy, said the ministry will not hesitate to act against errant companies.
The Ministry of Economy recently slapped a leading gas supply company in Abu Dhabi with a Dh100,000 fine after it hiked gas prices from Dh6.5 to Dh14 per cubic metres without obtaining the approval of the Higher Committee of Consumer Protection at the ministry.
This doesn’t happen here in our “free market” economy. Right?
Via IBD:
The federal government is cranking up its effort to control health care costs by imposing backdoor price controls on health insurers, or as the Government Accountability Office euphemistically puts it, so Americans “receive value for their (health insurance) premium dollars.”
A provision in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act referred to as the medical loss ratio (MLR) requires health insurers selling to large groups to spend 85% of their premiums on health care claims. Insurers selling to small firms and individuals must spend 80%.
That means insurers’ administrative costs, including profits and sales commissions, can’t exceed 15% for large company policies or 20% for policies sold to individuals or small companies. Insurers spending more must rebate to policyholders the excess.
Health insurers must inform the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) by June of this year whether they met their MLR for 2011, the first year it is being applied.
Ministry of Economy there… Department of Heath and Human Services here. no difference.
It starts with health care; where will it end? Down here Chavez started slowly with price control too.Now producers must prove their cost to the government which then sets the wholesale price of everything. Then retailers must prove their cost and the government sets the retail price. of course there are shortages of many products as a result. Do we really want to copy Venezuela?
As you pointed out, price controls create shortages every time they are tried. Of course, this never stops a leftist.
This is simply a way to put the companies out of business. We are well on the way to single payer, government owned hospitals– they will be bankrupt soon as well as our Docs.
Great point per usual Bunker. They can’t wait until hospitals and doctors start going under, and our benevolent politicians can step in to ‘save’ the day.