Health Insurance
I just re-read this old post, and I think think I've thought of a reasonable rule now: It should not be allowed to have an “insider” discount program which requires the involvement of a third party – in this case, the insurance company. That would mean that they must allow any customer to join the discount program without involving any third party. It does still reduce the right of a business negotiate prices with customers as it sees fit, but I think it's acceptable in the very common situation where no person the customer interacts with directly has the authority to negotiate a price. It could be explicitly restricted to that situation by allowing a choice between that and having every agent of the business who accepts payments also empowered to negotiate the price within the range allowed by all discount programs – in that case, the business should be required to make obvious to all customers which option it has chosen. Would that be an improvement on the current situation?