Many Republicans campaigned on a pledge to "repeal and replace" the health law, but experts say that's unlikely.

Republicans don't quite have the numbers to override a presidential veto. Still, President Obama's health secretary may have lots of explaining to do.

Mary Agnes Carey is with Kaiser Health News.

Carey: Fred Upton, who's a Republican congressman from Michigan, has joked that Kathleen Sebelius will have to get her own parking space at the Capitol, that she'll be called up there quite a bit.

Carey says Republicans do have the power to throw up roadblocks or perhaps underfund important initiatives. She says state-level Republicans may coordinate their efforts with federal lawmakers to oppose key parts of the law.

Carey: If a governor and a legislature at the state level chose not to do some of these things, the federal government would do it for them, and some governors — no matter what they say in their elections might be loathe to let the federal government come in their state and run an exchange or they might say: 'It's OK, go ahead do it.' So I think that's one area that we'll be watching closely.

Each state is supposed to set up a marketplace — a one-stop shop — where individuals and small businesses can buy insurance.

Carey says states have a lot of responsibility in the health law implementation. She says Corbett and others may slow the roll out by seeking waivers or arguing that certain provisions are too expensive.

Mark Pauly is a professor of health care management at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

He says much of the health law roll out is not written into law but a matter of politics and discretion.

Pauly: My guess is that there will be more flexibility there, in terms of how quickly they have to move and may be even how much of it they have to bear the cost of. I think the compromise ought to rule the day here and allow states to have a lot more choices as to how they will do these things and at what pace.

Pauly says many state-level Republicans are wary about the the federal government's promise to help fund the expansion of the Medicaid public health plan. Pauly hears compromising tones on implementing the Medicaid expansion but says he expects many Democrats to hold the line when it comes to new rules for health insurance companies.

One popular brand called Four Loko has gotten unwanted attention in recent months after several college students landed in the hospital after drinking the malt beverage. The Pennsylvania Liquor Control board wants businesses to halt sales until federal regulators decide if the alcohol-caffeine combo is dangerous.

In Philadelphia, Temple University sent letters warning students about the flavored drinks.

Associate Vice President of Student Affairs Stephanie Ives says Temple has a comprehensive program to fight high-risk drinking but she says the caffeine drinks are so new they warranted a special effort.

Ives: Because the product combines alcohol with caffeine, it overrides the body's ability to understand when it's had too much. So we were trying to caution students, and alert them against using these products.

The chair of Pennsylvania's Liquor Control Board says the flavored drinks are sold in 22 ounce cans and marketed to younger drinkers.

In a company statement, the Four Loko drink maker said its product is "as safe as any other alcoholic beverage" and has "roughly the same alcohol content as some craft beers or wine."

The drink maker responded to the control board actions saying: "curbing alcohol abuse will not be accomplished by singling out a lone product or beverage category."

Jay Wiederhold leads the wholesalers group, the Pennsylvania Beer Alliance. He says despite the the liquor board's request he's reminding alliance members that the products are still legal.

Wiederhold: So if they chose, as the owner of the business not to push the product that's fine. I'm not really telling them one way or another to do or not do anything, I guess is the way to look at right now, until we hear from the appropriate agencies.

In coming years, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will decide what kind of regulatory obstacles drug makers must scale to bring biosimilar therapies to market. This week, the is agency is holding public meetings.

Right now, medical therapies called biologics come only in brand-name form. Different from pharmaceuticals made from chemicals, biologic therapies are grown from living organisms.

Christopher Molineaux leads the life sciences trade group Pennsylvania Bio.

Molineaux: The two sides really are the innovator companies, companies like Johnson and Johnson, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Pfizer. Those are companies that innovate and create the original biotech drug, and on the other side of course are the generics companies, companies like Teva, also here in Pennsylvania, that are looking to bring a less expensive version of the product to patients.

Molineaux says the upfront investment in biologics is very costly and it's unclear if biosimilar products will be significantly cheaper.

Molineaux: The federal health law allows for 12 years of data exclusivity, which really says to the innovator company that they have 12 years of protection to recoup their research and development costs before a generic company can try to come out with a biosimilar product that would compete with the innovator.

Experts say the complicated, and expensive processes that bring biologics to market will be hard to replicate exactly, so federal regulators will surely want to build in safeguards to insure that the biosimilar drugs are effective and safe.

The heart attack preventer clopidogrel is sold under the brand name Plavix.

In the new study, researchers found that genetic testing works to identify those who might need a higher dose of Plavix, or patients who should be on a completely different medicine.

Michael Christman is president of the Coriell Institute in Camden. His genetics research group studies the emerging field of personalized medicine.

This is kind of a poster child for using genetic testing in determining which drugs are effective, and I think the real message is this is the tip of the iceberg. This is one drug. This is likely to be true for many of the huge blockbuster drugs that are on the market today.

Patients metabolize Plavix differently, and Christman says it doesn't work for about a quarter of the people who use it now. That leaves many patients vulnerable to serious heart complications.

Christman says most doctors don't regularly use genetic testing to guide their prescribing, but he suspects that insurance companies will soon push for more genetic testing.

A genetic test can cost about $400 — but it can be much more costly to leave a patient on a drug that doesn't work.

The rule was passed this year in the health overhaul law to help finance it.

Kevin Shivers is the Pennsylvania director of the National Federation of Independent Business, a lobbying group for small business owners.

He says the rule requires companies to keep track of minor expenses.

Shivers: If a business owner goes and gets a Big Mac at McDonald's or goes and grabs a cup of coffee, that $2.50 receipt is going to need to be held and if that individual winds up doing more than $600 worth of business with that company, they are now going to have to generate a 1099.

Shivers says completing government paperwork is one of the top expenses for small companies. But he says tracking down tax identification numbers from every mom and pop shop — and filing a 1099 form for each — may be an even bigger problem.

Shivers says one Lancaster County business owner reports he'll have to turn-in an extra 7,000 filings each year.

Igor Volsky is an analyst with the Center for American Progress.

Volsky: The health care law has many sources of funding. This is, I believe $17 billion that will go toward financing the health care expansion and the Affordable Healthcare Act.

Volsky says there's bipartisan agreement that many businesses are not paying all the taxes they should. The new reporting requirement was an attempt to capture some of those dollars. But now, Volsky says, both Republicans and Democrats are looking for ways to make the rule less onerous. In Congress, several draft amendments are in the works

Robert Simmons leads the public health program at Thomas Jefferson University. He wondered at the forum how candidates Tom Corbett and Dan Onorato will implement the federal law as governor.

Simmons: The answer, of course, is we don't know for sure, but I'm pleased to hear that in the platforms of both gubernatorial candidates it seems like many of the changes for health information technology – they both support that. The fear of course is that some of the things that we hear about and read about in the press could make Pennsylvania not take an as strong and active role.

Governor Rendell's health reform czar Ann Torregrossa said she thinks both candidates will continue Pennsylvania's plans to coordinate care better for people with chronic conditions. She's also hoping the the plan to build a state-level electronic health records system will survive.

Republican candidate Tom Corbett, who is the attorney general, has joined a lawsuit challenging the health law as unconstitutional.

Several panelists said they're worried that a Republican-controlled House of Representatives would repeal the law, but other supporters said a bigger worry is Congress stalling the roll out — and refusing to allocate money to key provisions.

Torregrossa said she wants to hear more from the candidates.

Torregrossa: Much of this act has to be implemented by the states and there's never been a time, or a more important issue about which to have a vigorous discussion about what's going to happen in Pennsylvania and I've just not seen that happen.

Torregrossa thinks both candidates will continue Pennsylvania's initiative to better coordinate care for people with chronic conditions.

She's also hoping the the plan to build a state-level electronic records system will survive.

The conference was hosted by the Earle Mack School of Law at Drexel University.

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Dr. Robert Gabbay leads the study at the Hershey Medical Center. Once patients have a basic understanding about diabetes, Gabbay says, they join a closed-circle, social network of other educated patients.

Gabbay: Typically only 5 percent of people with diabetes have probably ever gone to a class. Being able to do something on the Web, and particularly in this tailored messaging sort of approach, where you are given content based on adult learning styles. I think has some potential advantages.

The education program was designed by other people with diabetes who told researchers what they wished they'd known when they were first diagnosed.

Gabbay: Although we use social networking a great deal in our lives, it's not really been harnessed in terms of treating chronic illness as much as it could be. So this is an early attempt to study the impact on people.

The researchers will measure if the program and social network change patients' emotional stress, knowledge about diabetes or health behaviors.

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When someone's heart stops, when they collapse at the grocery store or the sideline of a soccer game — step one is still the same: Call for help.

Next, the guidelines say, provide hard and fast chest compressions. In the past, experts wanted us to first figure out if someone was breathing.

But Penn Medicine emergency medicine doctor Benjamin Abella says that approach was too complicated. Even health professionals sometimes struggle to determine if someone is breathing or not and lots of us are skittish about providing that first puff of air to a stranger.

Abella: The challenge was that people do not like the idea of touching someone's mouth. They didn't like the idea of doing mouth-to-mouth and happily the science has supported the fact that one doesn't actually need to do it. And so this is one of these nice situations where the science and the public instinct merge nicely together.

Abella says the new approach reverses the old mnemonic. Instead of A, B, C for airway, breathing and circulation. It's C, A, B – compressions, airway and breathing.

The idea is to do what's most important first, keep blood moving throughout the body until professional help arrives.

Abella: Now there are some exceptions, for example, if someone drowns, or someone becomes unresponsive from an asthma attack. But these are very uncommon situations and more importantly in the drowning situation very often there are trained providers such as lifeguards — or other health-care professionals or related people — and they should still be trained in standard CPR.

The experts want to encourage laypeople to step and do something. They say it's OK to skip the mouth-to-mouth and leave the rescue breathing to the professionals. The change comes on the heels of an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association. It shows that "hands only" CPR works effectively much of the time.

The Haven Youth Center in Southwest Philadelphia is one group that may benefit. At the center, teens can find a quiet space to do homework, watch some TV or play video games. There's also help for some hard stuff like telling a friend you have HIV.

William Brawner leads the center and knows what's it's like to negotiate your teen and dating years with a disease that many people fear. Brawner is 31 and has been HIV positive for 30 years.

Brawner: So we make sure that this young person is ready and make sure that they are ready for the possibility that someone may not accept them because of their HIV diagnosis. What we do sometimes is we do role plays, we play out different scenarios, and we show them how to respond if things go good and if things go bad.

Nineteen-year-old Steven hangs out at the center and asked that we not use his last name. He lives with his girlfriend, is expecting a new baby and is HIV positive.

Steven: You can come here, you don't have to worry about nobody talking about your business out on the street. Knowing that I have someone supporting me and backing me up helps. It's just a place to come talk, chill, with teenagers, to know you're safe.

Steven says the center also helped him connect with the right medical care to lower the chances that his baby will be born with the AIDS virus.

Administrators say Haven Center support groups ease social isolation and workers help teens sign up for government health programs and food assistance.

In Philadelphia, the rate of new HIV infections is five times the national average.