Sometime in the near future, a doctor might be able to prescribe some medical marijuana to a patient in New Jersey. But if the Jersey patient starts using it and finds herself in one of Philadelphia's hospitals later for an extended stay, her doctors will face a newfangled predicament. "What do you do if the patient is using marijuana and has it on them? We would have to tell them to stop it and cause more pain?" asked Curtis Miyamoto, chairman of the Department of Radiation Oncology at Temple University Hospital.

Don McLean says "American Pie" was written in Philadelphia, not the upstate New York bar that has long laid claim to it. Last week, the Glens Falls Star-Post published a story that begins by citing a plaque next to a booth in a Saratoga Springs bar called the Tin & Lint that claims that is the exact spot where McLean started to write "American Pie" in the summer of 1970. It turns out that this is not true. “First of all, it was written in Cold Spring, New York, and in Philadelphia, and it was performed first at Temple University when I was just getting started with Laura Nyro.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services called out a Pennsylvania health insurance company this week for an "unreasonable" rate increase. Temple health economist Thomas Getzen says the government's message is a signal to all insurance firms. "If you scream at somebody they will usually cut prices at least for a little while," Getzen said. "It's worked in pharmaceuticals and with hospitals." Under the Affordable Care Act, federal actuaries step in when officials decide a state doesn't have enough authority.

New start-ups are coming amid some signs that consumer confidence is rebounding. Retail sales broke records over the Thanksgiving weekend. However, an October survey of small-business optimism found that 26 percent of owners called poor sales their top business problem. Temple economist Bill Dunkelberg says the outlook for new small businesses remains poor. "On the cost side, you couldn't pick a better time, but two-thirds of new starts are financed almost entirely by the savings of the entrepreneur and their family.