Now that I'm (mostly) recovered from last week's Benefits Selling Expo—our biggest, by the way, with more than a 1,000 people crowded into the Marriott Marina in San Diego—I'm struck by a couple of things.

One, just how big a deal next year is. I know that almost sounds naive, but we've been talking about this legislation for so long that it's almost become this vague, esoteric threat that's always seemed to linger at the periphery, threatening, to be sure, but so far out there that it's exact impact on our day-to-day lives has been hard to quantify. But now that it's almost here, it's seems more overbearing than ever before.

And on that note, the second thing that still gnawing at me after talking to dozens of brokers last week is just how little time we have left. Enrollment in the exchanges kicks off in October—talk about your trick or treats. That gives us less than five months to get our (stuff) together.