Affordable health insurance for all Americans, including the 46 million uninsured and the 25 million under-insured, is the main goal of Obama’s healthcare reform. Creating a solution that reduces healthcare costs, enables everyone to get affordable health insurance, and still maintains a high quality of care has proven to be quite a daunting task. Over the past few months many ideas about how to improve our healthcare system have been discussed.

The key to affordable health insurance is creating competition among private health insurers and providing subsidies to underprivileged Americans. The “Public Plan” option will help reduce premiums, as the government will have pricing power. This will force private insurers to cut monthly premiums in order to stay competitive in the marketplace thus creating affordable health insurance plans. The Public Plan option has received a lot of press and has been heavily debated in both chambers, but recently the Obama administration has signaled they may be backing away from the idea amid pressure from opponents. However, the public plan option is not the key element upon which success of Obama’s healthcare reform will be determined. There are other options such as non-profit health insurance co-operatives, which will also increase competition and reduce health insurance premiums and cut healthcare costs over time.

Providing government assistance to under-privileged Americans in need of healthcare is essential if Obama wants to achieve his goal of insuring the majority of Americans. This will create affordable health insurance options for everyone as those less fortunate will have the opportunity to purchase health insurance and receive high quality care. However, in order for the plan to work individuals with pre-existing conditions will need to receive guaranteed issue from private insurers. The goal of quality healthcare for all Americans is achievable if the Obama administration can create a cost effective solution.