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People with severe injuries tend to fare much better at specialized trauma centers than in typical emergency rooms. But a study suggests less equipped hospitals are hanging on to patients who can pay.

When a relative signs up for Medicare, it is often perplexing — and unnerving — for the rest of the family who may have grown used to cushy employer-sponsored coverage.

If a couple divorces, each person's eligibility for insurance-related tax credits will generally be based on his or her own annual income. The former spouse's income won't be counted, even if the couple filed taxes jointly the previous year.

Screening tests like mammograms and colonoscopies are supposed to be covered under the Affordable Care Act. But some people are finding that they still end up having to pay for anesthesia and other associated services. And not all insurers are covering all forms of birth control.

San Francisco's Chinatown has long had its own hospitals and health care system. Now, one of the hospitals there is offering health insurance plans on California's exchange specifically for the Chinese-American community. It has been very successful where other plans have not.

Taxes have been part of health plan costs for decades, but they're not usually itemized on customers' bills. But a leading insurer in Alabama has calculated its customers' shares of taxes being paid by the company under the Affordable Care Act.

A likely change in obscure rules governing the Affordable Care Act could save unions a bundle. A fee that starts at $63 for each person covered by union insurance in 2014 would be waived if the administration proceeds as expected.

Medicare has tied incentive payments and penalties to two-dozen quality measurements, including surveys of patient satisfaction and death rates. More than 1,200 hospitals are receiving bonuses. But more hospitals are being paid less for each Medicare patient they treat for the year that began Oct. 1.

Some Californians are choosing plans that don't comply with the Affordable Care Act to save money. They have only a few weeks left to pick coverage that will last a year. It will eventually be replaced by health insurance that includes a full range of essential benefits, but at a higher cost.

The technological trials for the online health insurance exchanges have turned an enrollment period that was supposed to be a leisurely three-month stroll into a last-minute sprint for millions of Americans. People who want coverage that starts at the beginning of 2014 need to sign up no later than Dec. 23.