Before Gwen Collins headed to Tallahassee this week to ask lawmakers to limit the number of patients each hospital nurse cares for, she asked her fellow RNs at St. Joseph's Hospital in Tampa if they had a message to convey about their workloads. Their response: "Tell them this is madness." "Nurses want to see safety for patients and sanity for themselves," said Collins, a registered nurse who has heard similar sentiments from burned-out nurses at hospitals throughout the country. "They want to make sure mistakes are not made."

Nurses say they're overworked and spread too thin and it's affecting your safety. They teamed up with lawmakers Tuesday night in Kalamazoo to rally support. They're laying out the basics of new legislation that would regulate patient care across the state. House Bill 40-08 does two things. It creates a minimum nurse to patient ratio in hospitals and it also bans mandatory overtime.

Florida nurses are calling for legislation to set minimum hospital staffing ratios and give them whistle-blower protection. Dozens of registered nurses marched and held a rally Wednesday near the Florida Capitol to support the introduction of what they call a a patient protection bill.

A month after an earthquake devastated Haiti, teams of nurses and doctors are continue to travel to the Caribbean nation to help. A group of nurses from as far away as California, Michigan and Minnesota arrived in Jacksonville Sunday night to await transportation to the U.S. Navy medical ship, the USNS Comfort, currently stationed off Haitian coast.

President Obama's secretary of health and human services fired off a sharply worded letter to a California insurer Monday, demanding to know why it is raising rates for individual policyholders by as much as 39 percent. The unusual salvo offers a reminder that, even as health-care legislation lies in limbo in Washington, the battle over surging health care costs continues in other venues.

The L'Esperances are your typical American family. They work hard. They try to get ahead. They don't ask anyone for help. And they pray they don't get sick. Mom and Dad -- a.k.a. Laguna Beach residents Jan and Paul L'Esperance -- sell kitchenware on behalf of various manufacturers. They've just been informed by Anthem Blue Cross that premiums for their health insurance will rise 18% to $985 a month.

Chartered jets that offer "white glove service," fancy fundraisers in Beverly Hills and beyond, and enough high-priced political consultants to fill an auditorium. Those are a few of billionaire Meg Whitman's favorite things as she carries out her remarkably lavish campaign for California governor.