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It appears that health care coverage isn't dead yet.

According to the Chicago Tribune, the Senate Finance Committee has come to a tentative agreement regarding a health care coverage bill that features group health insurance cooperatives instead of a publicly funded government plan.

The bill still needs to be adjusted to suit the entire Senate, and who knows how long that could take. But in the mean time, a year of "congressional wrangling" has finally come to an end.

The more popularly supported group health insurance cooperatives would bring down insurance costs by allowing people to buy into plans served by nonprofit entities.

And with a legal requirement to purchase health care coverage, the higher number of healthy people forced to purchase insurance would offset the costs of the less healthy, leading to lower premiums and out of pocket costs.

Hopefully there would also be an end to the practice of denying people based on "pre-existing conditions."

Of course, Democrats and Republicans are still finding a way to argue about it. Democrats don't like that the bill doesn't offer a universal health insurance option, while Republicans complain that the bill could cost too much without adding enough coverage for the 48 million Americans who can't afford insurance right now.

Historically, group health insurance plans have cost less than the individual health insurance market, so for those who have been struggling in the individual market this could mean a huge boost.

And for those who have no coverage at all, even a little bit of help is better than going without health care at all.