Basic Business Principles A Mystery To Governments

I just heard a remarkable comment made by Secretary of Health and Services Kathleen Sebelius. One in which was made unwittingly.

Of course.

Naturally.

Follow me here.

President Obama said that his health care reform would cost in total $900 billion. No one should ever listen to anything any political leader has to say about finances - let alone when they say it won't add to any deficit of any kind. Easy there Doug Henning.

And Katherine Sebilious makes that point all the more stark.

When asked by Wolf Blitzer on CNN, and an important quesiton at that, how many Federal workers it would take to launch what the Democrats are proposing, she said, "we've yet to work that out."

We've yet to work that out.

Again. Altogether now!

An astute business student should have caught what I'm about to argue.

How could Obama have arrived at his final cost structure without knowing how many people will be employed?

Think about this.

I'm working out my cost structure for a small business and salary is the single most important expense I can't afford to miscalculate.

It sounds like the U.S. federal government is on its way to making that exact error. If they move forward this way, winging it so to speak, how in the world can they control costs?

The answer?

Anyone?

You can't.

You still need to be realistic to make compassion work.

It's going to resemble more like how corrupt governments hand out construction contracts for public works based on nepotism. Wink, wink, becomes ka-hing, ka-ching.