Is That An Admission of Thuggery?

http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=229243

So let me see if I get this right.
Mr. Jones appears to have made an admission -- his association members have been cost-shifting onto the backs of people coming into the hospital with "less sick" and "less complex" situations.
That is, by virtue of intentional obfuscation of the price of a procedure up front you are effectively forced to pay for someone else's procedure in whole or part.
Now here's the problem with that: It's broadly illegal to conspire to do that in other industries.
For instance, a car repair shop cannot fail to give you a binding estimate, within a reasonable tolerance (say, 10%) of the cost of a procedure before they start work.  In fact, consumer protection laws force them to do so.  Were said garage to intentionally try to cost-shift an engine replacement onto the backs of those who just need their oil changed by refusing to tell us up front how much the oil change would cost, then surprising us with a huge bill, we would call that fraud, because it would be.