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Patients admitted repeatedly to hospitals can be a big source of revenue and a big quality problem. Soon Medicare will penalize hospitals that readmit too many patients too often. Hospitals are trying some new approaches to care to get ready for the change.

Exchanges must be up and running by at the start of 2014, although states must prove a year earlier that they will be ready to go. The federal government will establish exchanges for states that can't or won't do so themselves.

A nonprofit rural hospital in Bisbee, Ariz., has made the unusual transformation from struggling facility to thriving business. But many hospitals like this one are anticipating hard times once Arizona reduces overall health spending by $500 million in 2012.

Managed care companies are getting into the business of running physician groups to keep costs down. And hospitals, physician groups and Wall Street investors are eying doctors who practice cheaper health care.

School-based health clinics are few and far between. But under the law overhauling health care, the federal government is awarding $95 million in grants to build, renovate or equip such clinics.

If an impasse were to drag on for more than a few weeks, health care providers could be unable to pay their staffs or even face insolvency, say health care experts and former government officials.

Sleep medicine specialists say surgery to treat obstructive apnea isn't the best first choice. Start with a breathing device called a continuous positive airway pressure mask, they recommend.

The tax agency would be responsible for checking whether individuals get required insurance, distributing billions of dollars in subsidies and collecting new taxes and penalties.

The Democrats' health overhaul legislation is in trouble for many reasons, including key policy decisions that led many Americans to wonder whether they would wind up worse off.

Democrats, who no longer have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, are weighing the use of a budget rule called reconciliation to pass at least part of the long-debated health overhaul package with a simple majority.