Total health care coverage for everyone in Pennsylvania funded by the tax on cigarettes was a great idea until the political squabble erupted. The result of the squabble was no compromise could be reached. Sadly, the idea of funding health care for all could have been the perfect solution for the uninsured and uninsurable. But, as usual, politicians couldn't agree with one another and the whole proposal was tanked.

There went a proposal that may have helped to kick the stuffing out of the $30 TRILLION dollar deficit in Medicare. It would have made sufficient inroads as an innovative strategy and set such an example for other states that the idea could have worked. So much for the practical day-to-day business of trying to stay healthy. How ironical that the business of trying to stay healthy funds the political arena and vice versa.

This is a cycle that continuously goes around like a wheel turning in the mud. No one seems to want to get pragmatic and do something about health care rather than just talk about it and around it. It's a great election issue, and every year it raises its ugly head, but nothing is ever done about it.

Medicare and the staggering deficit that faces this country and each state is the elephant in the living room. It won't go away, not without some major help to move it. The same goes for the Medicare deficit. Unless politicians actually DO something about it, it will languish, doomed to die on the vine every year while the deficit keeps creeping ever upward.

The irony of the situation is that those who demand socialized medicine, and health care for everyone, are the same people who, when asked if they are prepared to PAY for that to happen, say NO. It's this simple, either someone pays for it to happen or people have to live with out it. That's the vicious circle that happens every time health care is debated in the Legislature. No one wants to solve the problem if it is going to cost money.

To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.com