By BILL TOLAND, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

You've wanted to write a book or start a company or open a restaurant, but you've always been afraid of quitting your job and losing your health coverage. So would you be more likely to take an entrepreneurial leap if you knew you and your family's health expenses were covered, no matter what?

Big, employer-paid health policies are still the bread and butter of the insurance industry, but that's not the growth segment it used to be. Today, the industry's forward-thinkers are focusing on "retail" -- pushing products, policies and health advice directly to the consumer.

America is recalibrating. What might have been taken for granted two years ago seems altogether suspect now: Your home will retain its value. Your retirement savings will appreciate. You'll get a small raise next year. Your nearest bank and your neighborhood car dealership will continue to exist.

Married? Working two jobs? The new federal tax credit, born out of the stimulus package and coming your way any week now, might be more trouble than it's worth.

You may be under the impression that the stimulus bill is all about highway projects and renewable energy, but there's plenty in it for you, too, mostly in the form of tax credits.

A surgeon amputates the wrong foot or leaves a sponge sewn in your abdomen. You're given the wrong blood type. Bedsores. Infections. Falls. A missed asthma diagnosis.
Which events are intolerable, and which are merely unfortunate? Should hospitals and doctors be punished financially for mistakes, or should they be rewarded for getting it right?

In this recession, the men's jobs were the first to go: The autoworkers, the homebuilders, the manufacturers and the contractors. And that means women, by default, are closer than ever to catching men in the work force, a historic equilibrium that has never been achieved.

Change was the buzzword of Barack Obama's presidential campaign. Now that his presidency has begun, businesses large and small are wondering how the sweeping promises of change will affect the American business community, for good or ill.

Unless you've lost your job in the last 12 months, the recessionary symptom that affected you most directly was the knotting of America's credit market.
Even people with good credit ratings had a more difficult time securing home and auto loans, and those able to find a lender learned that financing was more expensive. Credit card interest rates went up for many.

It turns out casinos aren't recession-proof after all.That used to be an economic truism, but it's been put to the test in the last year, and especially since the start of 2008."The last six months have really blown conventional wisdom to smithereens," said Joseph Weinert, an analyst with Spectrum Gaming Group.