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Assuming HealthCare.gov's technical problems are largely fixed by November's end, as Obama administration officials have reassured, Democrats will still face an even headier challenge: They must square with reality President Obama's oft-made promise that the new health care law would allow people to keep existing insurance plans they like.

It turns out that promise isn't entirely true.

Yes, most people who get their health insurance through large employers aren't likely to see major changes.

But for the millions who buy their health insurance through the individual market, changes prompted by the Affordable Care Act are definitely happening. Among them: people finding insurance cancellation letters in their mailboxes.

Although the law includes a provision for some existing policies to continue even if they don't meet Obamacare's minimum coverage standards, some insurance companies are dropping such policies rather than claim their "grandfathered" exception. And people who held (and perhaps liked) those minimalist policies and what they cost now must find insurance elsewhere.

In a Boston speech Wednesday partly aimed at rebutting charges that he misled Americans through blanket statements about individuals maintaining coverage they liked, Obama suggested he always played it straight. Any misunderstanding must've come from elsewhere:

"Now if you had one of these substandard plans before the Affordable Care Act became law and you really liked that plan, you were able to keep it. That's what I said when I was running for office.

"That was part of the promise we made.

"But ever since the law was passed, if insurers decided to downgrade or cancel these substandard plans, what we said under the law is, you've got to replace them with quality, comprehensive coverage because that too was a central premise of the Affordable Care Act from the very beginning."

Look around. Do you see much inflation?

Gas prices are down more than 7 percent from last year. Grocery costs haven't budged lately. And — just in time for Halloween — the price of candy is down 2.3 percent from last year, according to the government's consumer price index released Wednesday.

Also on Wednesday, Federal Reserve policymakers concluded that amid tame inflation and slow growth, they see no need to change direction in their approach to helping the economy. They will continue their program of buying bonds to help put downward pressure on the cost of borrowing, which is intended to help boost the battered housing market. The policymakers said the housing recovery "slowed somewhat in recent months" and "the unemployment rate remains elevated."

They "decided to await more evidence that progress will be sustained before adjusting the pace of its purchases" of bonds, the Fed said in its statement.

The Fed's bond-buying efforts helped tamp down mortgage rates to historic lows. While everyone agrees that effort has made mortgage refinancing and homebuying easier, it also has worried many economists who fear that such prolonged intervention in markets will lead to trouble down the road. Trouble is spelled i-n-f-l-a-t-i-o-n.

Fed officials themselves have stated they will have to "taper down" bond purchases eventually to allow rates to return to higher, more normal levels. But as of the end of Wednesday's meeting, that time hasn't come.

The central bank policymakers are worried that without their intervention, lending would get tighter and that would slow the economy.

So what do the latest data tell us about the current state of the economy? Because of the federal government shutdown earlier this month, many key reports have been canceled or delayed, so economists have been working with fewer numbers than usual.

But still, they have enough information from industry and government sources to be able to estimate what is happening. Here are some of the things we know:

Jobs are growing, but at a disappointing rate. On Wednesday, payroll processing firm ADP said private sector employment rose by 130,000 in October, lower than September's gain of 145,000. "Hiring slowed in October with the government shutdown and debt limit debate, but did not stall," PNC Financial Services Group chief economist Stuart Hoffman said in his assessment.

The consumer price index shows food prices are flat, and inflation generally is tame. "Soggy demand, weak energy prices, reversal of post-drought price gains in food, and relatively high unemployment rates are all slowly cooling price pressures," IHS Global Insight economist Chris Christopher wrote in his analysis.

Gasoline in particular has taken a dive, at least compared with last year. Gasbuddy.com says the average gallon of regular gas costs $3.29. At this time last year, it was $3.55.

Middle-market companies — businesses with annual sales between $10 million and $1 billion — saw revenues grow by 5.5 percent over the past year, but nearly half say government dysfunction is a drag going forward, according to a new survey. "Markets have been roiled by the uncertainties arising out of fiscal cliff, sequestration, government shutdown, and the threat of default," said Anil Makhija, director of the National Center for the Middle Market. In that environment, midsize companies are "intending to create 200,000 less jobs over the next 12 months," he said.

Consumer confidence, as measured by the Conference Board, a business group, showed a sharp plunge in the past month, with the index falling 11 percent. Lynn Franco, the group's director of economic indicators, said: "Consumer confidence deteriorated considerably as the federal government shutdown and debt-ceiling crisis took a particularly large toll on consumers' expectations."

The 16-day partial shutdown of the federal government and the wrangling in Washington over the nation's finances combined to shake consumers' confidence sharply in October, the private Conference Board reported Tuesday morning.

Its widely watched consumer confidence index dropped to 71.2 from 80.2 in September.

How consumers are feeling is an important economic indicator because they purchase about 70 percent of all the goods and services that businesses produce. If consumers scale back their spending because they aren't feeling like things are going well, that can set off an unfortunate chain of events: soft sales that lead companies to postpone hiring or shed some workers, moves that then make consumers feel even more nervous and more reluctant to spend.

In Tuesday's release, Conference Board economist Lynn Franco says that "the federal government shutdown and debt-ceiling crisis took a particularly large toll on consumers' expectations."

She adds that:

Community supported agriculture shares are moving out of the crisper and into the pantry.

That's the hope, anyway, of a growing number of farmers and small processors who are marketing local goods under the CSA model.

In traditional a CSA, a farmer sells shares of their fruit and vegetable crop ahead of the growing season to generate cash flow for the year. The farmer then provides boxes of seasonal produce on a regular basis to shareholders during the harvest.

The farmer and the customers share equally in the harvest, come bumper crop or blight. The practice started in the U.S. in Massachusetts back in 1986 and now rivals farmers markets as the best way to access local food. Local Harvest maintains a CSA registry, and to date there are close to 7,600 CSAs, up from 3,500 in 2008.

Community supported canners have copied the model, and they're helping to fill the gap in the winter months when CSA shares of fresh vegetables peter out. Their offerings might include dried beans, grains, baking mixes, frozen meats and farmhouse cheese in addition to salsa, jams, syrups, pickles and other fermented vegetables.

Cheryl Wixon's Kitchen operates out of Coastal Farm and Foods, an incubator for commercial small-scale food processing in Belfast, Maine. For $300, a share in Wixon's CSA will get you 54 jars of pasta and pizza sauces, cranberry ketchups and fruit jams and butters delivered between November and April.

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