In a little more than two months, individuals and small businesses will be able to enroll in health plans offered by the Health Insurance Exchanges (HIEs) created under the Affordable Care Act.  By the deadline of January 1, 2014, all states must have an operational individual and small-business exchange.  The Congressional Budget Office estimates that nine million people will obtain coverage through HIEs in 2014, a number predicted to rise to 22 million people by 2022. Will that mean more patients for anesthesiologists?  Or at least more insured patients?  On the face of things, it seems obvious that better population coverage will lead to a greater number of patients for whom insurance will pay providers.  The current state of development, or lack of development, of HIEs in many localities, however, together with the July 2nd announcement by the U.S. Treasury Department that it will postpone until 2015 the mandate requiring that employers with 50 or...