A report in HealthAffairs says that California’s Hospital Fair Pricing Act, enacted in 2006, was meant to shield uninsured people from paying the full, undiscounted prices as determined by each hospital’s chargemaster’s decision. The author  found that from 2004 to 2012 ”the net price actually paid by uninsured patients shrank from 6 percent higher than Medicare prices to 68 percent lower than Medicare prices.” The author deems the law a big success.