President Obama has declared H1N1 a national emergency. But what does that really mean? I mean, national emergency sounds  terrifying.

Yet the nuts and bolts of the declaration tell a different story. This is really more of a "look-ahead" plan, as in "just in case", rather than "we're all going to get critically ill in the next few hours."

Its expected that H1N1 will continue along, plateau some, then take off again with another wave of illnesses in the months to come.

Here's what the order does. It allows hospitals in that time ahead, or even now,  to have the leeway to implement emergency plans without jumping through a lot of federal hoops.

Thats means sending patients to schools, nursing homes, or other facilities if the hospital is overrun with patients. It also smoothes out the traige, or screening process as sick people arrive at the ER.

So there's not as much to it as you might think, or fear. The bad news is that it does nothing to speed up the production and distribution of vaccine. No emergency order can fix that.