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One new option he'll soon have is to buy insurance through Covered California's SHOP exchange. SHOP stands for for Small Business Health Options Program. It's California's version of a small-business insurance program that is part of the federal Affordable Care Act. The state has 500,000 small businesses.

All states are offering similar small-business exchanges. These are marketplaces for employers with 50 or fewer full time workers, and are designed to offer more affordable insurance to mom-and-pop businesses that have long paid more than large companies for the same level of coverage.

"Small businesses are horribly disadvantaged in terms of being able to purchase insurance," says Peter Harbage, president of the Sacramento-based health policy firm Harbage Consulting. "If they're even able to purchase it, they have to pay more and they get less."

Harbage says that not only will SHOP plans offer competitive prices, they will also offer tax benefits that for some smaller companies might cut premium prices in half.

But John Kabateck is not so optimistic. He is California executive director for the National Federation of Independent Business, and represents more than 22,000 small businesses in California.

"There are a lot of uncertainties as it relates to the law," he says. "We are hopeful that they will find affordable coverage within the exchange. We are hopeful they will have the ability to pick and choose in the marketplace."

Planet Money

One Key Thing No One Knows About Obamacare

The health benefits of eating fish are pretty well-known. A lean source of protein, fish can be a rich source of healthful omega-3 fatty acids and has been shown to benefit heart, eye and brain health.

But for years, pregnant women have been advised to go easy on the fish. The U.S. government advises expecting mothers to eat no more than 12 ounces of seafood like salmon and shrimp, and to steer absolutely clear of bigger catch like swordfish and shark. The reason for this caution: concerns that mercury, found in nearly all seafood, could harm their babies' developing brains.

Now, fresh research suggests that advice might have been too restrictive.

Researchers at the University of Bristol in England have found that eating fish accounts for only 7 percent of the mercury in a person's body. "That was much lower than people have assumed," lead researcher Jean Golding tells The Salt. "It really implies that if women are worried about mercury affecting their children, stopping eating fish will not be beneficial."

The study, published in Environmental Health Perspectives, analyzed 103 types of food and drink items consumed by over 4,000 pregnant women. The team at Bristol sent blood samples from the expecting mothers to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for analysis.

Even if a person were to avoid eating all 103 items analyzed, the researchers concluded, using regression analysis, that would only lower their blood mercury content by 17 percent.

Your Health

Getting Brain Food Straight from the Source

President Obama has been railing against Republicans in Congress nearly every day this week.

"One faction of one party in one house of Congress in one branch of government shut down major parts of the government," he said in the White House Rose Garden on Tuesday. "All because they didn't like one law."

He's expected to take that message on the road on Thursday, visiting a construction company in Maryland to talk about the impact of the shutdown on the economy.

And that finger-pointing at Republicans is sure to be part of his speech again.

Obama's rhetoric in this conflict is a shift from some of his earlier complaints about Congress — and that's having a positive effect on Democrats.

Talking about his adversaries who work in the Capitol in 2011, for example, he characterized lawmakers as lazy, saying "there shouldn't be any reason for Congress to drag its feet."

In 2010, he described them as wasteful. "Congress has provided unrequested money for more C-17s that the Pentagon doesn't want or need," he said.

In those speeches, the enemy was not specifically the House or the Senate, not Republicans or Democrats. Often it was just "Congress."

"There's a long and honorable tradition going back to Harry Truman of running against the Congress," says former Democratic Sen. Ted Kaufman of Delaware.

That tactic worked for Obama — he was running for re-election at the time. But it rankled congressional Democrats.

"Obviously, if you're part of the criticism, you don't feel good about it," Kaufman says. "I mean, one of the things that really bothers Democrats in the Senate is ... when people say, 'Well, it's the Republicans and the Democrats — it's all of you.' "

Back then, Obama was also trying to reach a grand bargain with Republicans. Singling them out as the enemy wouldn't have done much good. So he lumped in his own party as part of the problem.

Now the situation has changed dramatically, and so has Obama's rhetoric. The president does not pass up any chance to single out his adversaries as a minority within the GOP.

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Unable To Stop Shutdown, Obama Pins Blame On GOP

The United States filed a court brief (pdf) opposing the release of details concerning the surveillance requests they hand big tech companies in the U.S.

As we reported back in August, Microsoft and Google were trying to reach an agreement with the government about what they could reveal about national security requests for customer data. When tech companies receive those requests, they also come with a gag order, making it illegal for them to tell their customer or anyone else about the request from the government.

Those talks crumbled and the companies moved forward with a lawsuit filed in the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, demanding the ability to publish information clearly showing the number of demands for user content like the text of an email.

"Unless this type of information is made public, any discussion of government practices and service provider obligations will remain incomplete," Brad Smith, a Microsoft vice president and general counsel, said in a blog post.

In a Sept. 30 filing with the court responding to the lawsuit, the Justice Department argued that releasing too much information about its requests would risk revealing its "sources and methods of intelligence collection, including the Government's ability (or inability) to conduct surveillance on particular electronic communication service providers or platforms."

"Releasing information that could induce adversaries to shift communication platforms in order to avoid surveillance would cause serious harm to the national security interests of the United States," the government said.

The tech companies have argued that by issuing gag orders, the government is denying them of their First Amendment rights. But the government dismissed that, saying the information they want to disclose is classified, therefore not covered by the First.

All Things D reports on the tech firms' response:

"Google said in a statement today, 'We're disappointed that the Department of Justice opposed our petition for greater transparency around FISA requests for user information. We also believe more openness in the process is necessary since no one can fully see what the government has presented to the court.'

"And Microsoft: 'We will continue to press for additional transparency, which is critical to understanding the facts and having an informed debate about the right balance between personal privacy and national security.'"