"We need to work really hard to make sure we're working with the agent-broker community," Cohen said.

Though the realization might be a little late, but the truth is, brokers are severely needed now more than ever. There's so much turmoil and confusion over benefits plans, and brokers are the ones who have the expertise to sort it out for consumers and clients. Those brokers who rise above all this drama — and don't give up — will do well for themselves.

2. FSA news. The big change to flexible spending accounts last month — allowing participants to carry over up to $500 of their unused balances remaining at the end of a plan year — was welcome news for pretty much everybody.

Employers, benefits consultants and other FSA administrators have been arguing for the change to its long subjected use-it-or-lose-it rule for years — and it finally paid off. People like Bob Natt, executive chairman of Alegeus Technologies, a health and benefits payments firm, pointed out that the change eliminated the most significant barrier to FSA participation — namely consumers' fear of losing their money. No controversy, just a rule that will have far-reaching effects: An estimated 14 million families participate in FSAs.

3. Medicaid expansion. It hasn't gotten a lot of press, but Medicaid is emerging as an early PPACA success story. Mid-month numbers from Avalere Health showed Medicaid signed up 444,000 people in 10 states in the six weeks since open enrollment began. Twenty-five states are expanding their Medicaid programs, but data for all of them wasn't available.

4. The importance of local government. The state-run exchanges have fared much better than the federal exchange. Enrollment numbers are higher, and the sites — for the most part — are working much better. It's a shame so many Republican-led states fought Obamacare so adamantly, defaulting to the federal government on running their exchange — contrarian to their own conservative beliefs against big government.

Basically, the state-run exchanges seem like a real lost opportunity—and yes that's bad news. But — as Denis Storey recently wrote — in good news, the law has proved that things simply run better at a local (or in this case, state) level.

5. People are talking about health care — and insurance. Yes, this idea is rather simple. But PPACA — good or bad — has finally made health care and insurance at the forefronts of a lot of minds. No surprise it hasn't been a sexy subject before, but now people are talking about it. It's finally being slowly understood that having health coverage is actually really important — even if people don't like the way it's being done.

(And hey, added bonus: It makes my job a lot more interesting.)