My grandfather worked for a major, but now decades bankrupt retailer his entire career.  He started at the bottom, right at the beginning of the depression, took over 30 transfers during his career and by the time he took an early retirement as the result of a heart attack, he was a senior executive in the corporation. He always spoke his mind.

During a rough patch for the company, toward the end of his career, he was in an executive meeting and the President of the company said something to the effect that "they were a middle of the road' company, to which my grandfather replied, "the only time this company is in the middle of the road is when it is bouncing from one gutter to the other.  Not PC.  Not engendering.  Probably not a great career move.

My observation is that our government, like a pendulum, or the ball in the example above, tends to be at one extreme or another.   They create extremes in their policies that are meant to correct the previous extreme policies or to take power away from the private sector.  Take for example the housing mess.  Policies that eased lending practices without proper regulation led to greed and irresponsible lending and borrowing and subsequent meltdown.  That was followed by throwing billions of dollars at the problem which so far has kept some banks from collapsing but that is about it.  This will probably be followed by a period of massive regulation.  Huge swings in policy with painful consequences on each end.  Hopefully, between the extremes there will be some stability.

The same seems to be true in health care.  The Government, in its desire for power is attempting to control the health care marketplace in the U.S.  The passage of the SCHIP legislation last week expands the role of Government in health care.  It's desire that every person in the U.S. have health care coverage and it's willingness to fund it will drive extreme policies which could wreak havoc on the health care system overall.  Although I don't believe Universal Healthcare is the answer, nor do I believe we will get to that point, I do believe the Government, in its quest for power will create more instability in the marketplace than stability.

CDH or Consumer Driven Health will remain in the mix and be an important part of it.  The pendulum is swinging there too, but is not at either extreme at the moment in my opinion.  We are swinging away from heavily employer subsidized insurance to more of the cost of insurance being passed to employees.  I actually believe this is a good thing, as consumers have lost perspective over the years through managed health care.  The cost of health care has become far more opaque and we, for the most part, as consumers, have little idea of the cost of health care.  High Deductible Health Plans and Health Savings Accounts, while they do put more of the cost burden back on us in the short term, arguably help drive down the cost of health care over the long term.  How so?  Well, if we understand what health care costs, we can become better shoppers for services and we are more likely to be proactive in managing our health.  That leads to healthier bodies, greater competition in the market and lower costs over time.

Watch the pendulum swing on this one.