The give and take regarding current health care legislation has led us to wonder if and how affordable health insurance will be made available to all Americans.

Everything from a public-option, to a legal insurance mandate, to health care co-ops have been suggested as a means of lowering insurance costs and making coverage available to all citizens.

But at the Washington Post, an article about recent proposed changes to health care legislation suggests that "targeting industry profits and taxes" might be the Senate's solution to providing affordable health insurance to everyone.

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid has suggested an amendment that would enforce spending requirements on health insurance companies.

Larger plans would be required to spend at least 85 cents on the dollar on medical costs, while smaller plans would be held to an 80 cents rule. This would hopefully curtail the practice of insurance companies trimming medical spending and raising customer costs to boost profits and please their shareholders.

This amendment is also joined by plans to more heavily tax the health insurance industry, and to tax the use of tanning salons.

Tanning salons have been linked to skin cancer, treatment for which costs in the billions each year. Much like alcohol and tobacco taxes, this new tax would theoretically help to pay for affordable health insurance and at the same time lower the incidences of skin cancer in America.