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The government has identified hundreds of hospitals where Medicare patients are incurring especially high or low bills. Hospitals around McAllen, it turns out, aren't as terrible as they were made out to be, according to Medicare's calculations of how much it spent for the average patient from three days before admission to a month after discharge.

In Michigan, areas with more cardiac catheterization labs — places where patients are diagnosed for heart problems — tended to have more interventions than those with fewer labs.

Even as Florida leads the Supreme Court challenge against the federal health law, a private and a public hospital both prepare for an influx of new patients if the law's Medicaid expansion survives.

Students aren't employees, and student health plans are generally individual policies that the students buy on their own, even if they're offered through the college. So mandatory coverage of birth control for students shouldn't be delayed past August, but it could take longer for the faculty, advocates say.

The state legislature is now mulling a change to allow trained home care aides to administer medications to Medicaid patients while working under a nurse's supervision. If the proposal becomes law, it could save the state a bundle.

Until a national health insurance mandate takes effect in 2014, states run stopgap pools to cover people with pre-existing conditions. The federal funds to pay for the coverage are being stretched thin in many states.

There was a party atmosphere at Affordable Care Act events both in California, where the law has been embraced by the state government, and in Virginia, where it has been resisted. But consumers will have very different experiences in the two states.

Insurance plans that carry higher premiums may be a bargain for consumers with costly health conditions. Lower out-of-pocket costs for some patients can offset the higher price of the coverage over the long haul.

In the past, many psychotherapists ran their own little businesses. But changes in health care coverage mean that many must start accepting insurance and doing paperwork. That's leading some therapists to form group practices or join large medical groups — and may lead to better care for patients.

People are looking for answers to complex health insurance problems. The navigators whose job it is to help are going to have their work cut out for them now that that the Affordable Care Act is moving into high gear.