If you or your spouse have health insurance through your employer, you may soon find yourself in "open enrollment," or the time of year when you can review your current benefits and decide if you'd like to change your plan.

As much of a pain as this can be -- it sounds about as exciting as taxes, right? -- picking the best health insurance plan for you and your family is critical. Planning to have a baby soon? Need new eyeglasses? Struggling to make ends meet? There are so many factors to consider when selecting health insurance. Make sure you do it right:

Open Enrollment in 5 Steps: How to Decide

Why Should You Care?

What Are Health Savings Accounts?

Special interest groups are going to great lengths for the chance to participate in health reform. According to the Associated Press, the pharmaceutical industry and hospitals have both agreed to give up billions of dollars now in order to protect their interests in the future. Providers are especially interested in ensuring that if healthcare reform includes a public plan option, payment rates are comparable to those provided by private insurance plans rather than Medicare rates.

However, these special interests cannot come close to footing the bill for health reform, which has been estimated at $1 trillion over the next 10 years. This means that their offer is a calculated risk - they hope that the President remembers their support when it comes time to sign a reform bill into law.

A recent article in the Boston Globe highlights a disturbing but increasingly common trend - Americans who take or stay with a job strictly for the health insurance. In many cases, these individuals have tried to obtain coverage on their own but found it to be more expensive than the group coverage available through some part-time jobs. Even relatively low-wage jobs, such as those available through Starbucks or retail chains, become more attractive to Americans looking for affordable health coverage.

A group of legislators who call themselves Blue Dog Democrats have put the brakes on a comprehensive health reform bill working its way through the House of Representatives. According to the Washington Post, this setback is especially troubling to President Obama, who has deemed health reform to be one of his top two priorities in 2009. However, the Blue Dog Democrats will not approve any legislation that fails to contain costs. They want to be sure that everything possible will be done to reduce costs within the system before resorting to taxation as a funding source. This faction is working on their own draft of legislation that will address their concerns. The President has asked Congress to present him with a reform bill by October, so time is running short - even if the House does reach an agreement, they must then reach an agreement with the Senate before delivering this key legislation.

The White House town hall earlier this week brought new attention to health reform, but did not clarify how President Obama hopes to achieve his goals. Instead, the town hall meeting featured real stories from Americans who have struggled under our current system, and provided an overview of what the President hopes that health reform will look like.

According to the Associated Press, the President would like to eliminate pre-existing condition exclusion periods and redistribute healthcare spending in a more efficient way. He also discussed how important it is for us to change incentives that reward providers for offering a greater number of services, rather than better quality of care. However, he offered few specifics. Congress will be working hard to finalize some legislation in the coming weeks that may address these issues.

The national discussion on health reform will take place this afternoon at 1:15PM. You can join in via Facebook, Twitter, or at Whitehouse.gov.

...to ask him any questions you have about health reform.

He will answer some of the most popular questions during an online town hall discussion held on Wednesday, July 1, 2009.

President Obama recently spoke at a town hall meeting on healthcare reform. During this event, he remarked that if one of his family members were facing serious illness, he would "always want them to get the very best care," regardless of cost. This comment has been quite controversial in the health policy arena, as some experts interpret it to mean that he himself would not want to be subjected to the kind of healthcare rationing that he is proposing for the rest of America. However, others believe he was really trying to make a point about healthcare quality, and what exactly it means to get the "very best care." Sometimes, especially with healthcare, more is not always better. The "very best care" could be nothing at all.

These issues of cost containment and healthcare quality take center stage as the Senate and House work towards finalizing their reform bill drafts. They will be faced with difficult decisions about how to direct our limited and finite financial resources towards providing the best possible care for as many Americans as possible.

House Democrats have announced that they will not accept any health reform bill that does not include a public plan option. The public plan option would allow the federal government to offer a health insurance plan similar to those offered by private insurance companies like CIGNA or Blue Cross Blue Shield.

According to Roll Call, this announcement was intended as a message for the Senate, who has been working on their own version of health reform for some time now. Although the Senate has been largely sidestepping this controversial issue, the House is confronting it directly, insisting that the public plan option is necessary to keep private insurers "honest."

The Senate has been working on ways to make their health reform bill more cost-effective. This week, they announced that they have reached a consensus on keeping the total cost of reform under $1 trillion over 10 years.

According to the New York Times, they accomplished this primarily by making it harder for American families to obtain government subsidies for healthcare. The income thresholds for financial assistance would be decreased, so that families making over 300% of the federal poverty guidelines would be ineligible for government assistance. Additionally, the Senate may also consider limiting tax credits for small businesses that offer health insurance as an employee benefit.

The Senate had been hoping to come to a final agreement on their health reform bill this week, but were unable to do so. However, they are definitely making progress.