The Affordable Care Act implies a promise in its very name, suggesting health care coverage will be within reach of all Americans' pocketbooks. 

But new details about some states' insurance exchanges are raising doubts about the overall affordability of what are supposed to be budget-friendly plans. 

Many consumers have focused on the monthly premiums insurers will charge, regardless of whether you're sick or seeking treatment. 

Some plans are actually rolling in with lower premiums than forecast. California's midlevel silver category of coverage, for instance, will offer rates ranging from $304 to $335 per month. 

 

Updated at 2 p.m. ET.

As if it's not bad enough to lose all your possessions in a wildfire, imagine the insult when your satellite TV provider demands $400 in payment for lost equipment. 

Jeremy Beach of Black Forest, Colo., said that's what happened after his family's house burned to the ground Tuesday, the Colorado Springs Gazette reports. When he started calling providers and utilities to cancel service to the nonexistent home, most were understanding. All except DirecTV (DTV). 

The company told him he would owe the company $400 for a satellite dish and two receivers that were lost in the fire. 

"I couldn't believe it," he said. "I had lost everything, and they acted like they could (not) care less."

 

They're known as "bring your gun to work" or "parking lot" laws, and Alabama will soon become the latest of about 20 states to have such a measure. The NRA-supported bill was signed into law in May and takes effect in Alabama on Aug. 1.

The new law allows people with valid permits to keep firearms stored in their vehicles while at work. And those with a valid state hunting licenses can keep an unloaded rifle or shotgun in their vehicles while at work. Among its provisions, including how and when a firearm can be transported onto company property, the NRA notes the Alabama law "extends the current Castle Doctrine to include places of business to ensure the right of self-defense does not end when you enter your business."

 

Even without the fatty concoctions they cook or the occasional horse meat they serve, fast food workers can be nasty. Seriously, some of you folks are just gross.

The American public's stomachs are just now untwisting themselves after taking in images of a since-fired employee at Yum Brands' (YUM) Taco Bell licking a stack of shells, a similarly terminated KFC employee licking a pile of mashed potatoes, a sacked Burger King (BKW) employee stomping on a bin of lettuce and another Taco Bell employee nuking his career by urinating on a plate of nachos.

Now those stomachs are turning again, thanks to a Reddit photo of a Wendy's (WEN) employee who decided to dispense a Frosty into his mouth straight from the machine.

 

What could really knock the global economy for a loop?

A deepening recession in Europe, continued unrest in Turkey and civil war in Syria, our own wobbly economy here in the U.S., Japan's tanking stock market, federal agencies that think we're all terrorists, large companies willing to give all of our information to said agencies, forest fire season, tornado season, hurricane season ...

That's just the heavily abridged version of our calamity and worry list.

Now, the folks at Quartz -- the same people who told us we've reached "peak meat" -- insist the global economy has reason to fear the weather in space. Niraj Choksi explains:

 

The White House has released what it calls "The Great Gatsby Curve" on its Tumblr page, hoping to jump-start more discussion about why it's getting tougher to move up the economic ladder.

Why all the attention to the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel? Because the divide between the rich and poor in this country is growing, and by the time the Great Recession hit, it was as vast as it had been at any time since "The Great Gatsby" days, according to the Obama administration.

The Great Gatsby Curve was introduced by Alan Krueger, chief economist at the White House. It shows that in countries where income is more concentrated at the top, in the hands of the rich, it's harder for poor children to climb out of poverty as adults. 

No, private companies, you can't slap a patent on genes that occur in nature.

You can, however, hold exclusive rights to any Frankensteined gene that comes out of your lab. That's the leeway the Supreme Court offered on Thursday when it handed down its decision in Association for Molecular Pathology vs. Myriad Genetics (MYGN), which centered around Myriad's desire to patent the so-called BRCA genes believed to cause breast cancer.

This is going to create quite a mess in the federal patent office, where thousands of patents for isolated genes have been issued since 1982. It's not great news for biotech companies, either, as those 30-plus years of patents helped protect their research from competitors and, in turn, attracted a lot of investment.

 

Earlier this year, Dr. Michael Ciampi sent a letter to patients at his family practice in South Portland, Maine, telling them he would no longer accept any form of health insurance. He now posts prices on his office website and asks patients to pay for services out of pocket.

Ciampi is part of a small but growing number of physicians who are switching  to a cash-only model (not strictly cash -- most also accept payments by check and credit or debit cards) in order to streamline their costs.

CNNMoney says about 4% of respondents to a survey conducted last year by the American Academy of Family Physicians said they took only cash at their practices, up from 3% in 2010. And a physician compensation report by WebMD site Medscape found 6% of doctors had a concierge or cash-only practice this year, compared with 4% in 2012.