October 9, 2007
Congress recently passed a lousy bill to reauthorize SCHIP. Its purpose is to provide health care for poor kids. Once Congress got done with it, it became a program that covers middle-class kids and a program that will lose most of its money in its sixth year of existence.
Politics is a great profession, isn't it? Would anyone create a strategic plan like that in a business?
Dream Sequence
BOSS: All right, and now Mr. Congress will present a report on the strategic plan for our SCHIP division.
Mr. CONGRESS: Well, as you can see from this graph here, I'll be taking in a lot more money than we used to be, so there'll be enough in the budget to market SCHIP's products to our expanded market.
CURIOUS COWORKER: So there are now more customers to sell SCHIP products to?
Mr. CONGRESS: No, actually, we're changing our mission statement so that we cover completely different markets than we did previously.
MARKETING MANAGER: Erm, the other markets already have a product they already use. We went to a lot of work to develop the marketing strategy for the market we have.
Mr. CONGRESS: Oh, everyone'll love SCHIP products once they have them! So, anyhow, you can see from this graph that this program won't cost too much, so I heartily recommend approving it.
BOSS: It looks like from your graph that you're slashing most of your budget in the sixth year.
Mr. CONGRESS: Yes.
BOSS: Are you going to lose most of the customers in that year, or lay most of your people off? Why the drop?
Mr. CONGRESS: No, actually we're just going to end the program in the sixth year.
BOSS: Why?
Mr. CONGRESS (begins to sob): Because my mean opponents don't care about our target market! (cough) (Aside) And if you don't approve my plan you hate our target market too.
BOSS: Why didn't you just put the sixth year's costs on the graph?
MUSIC: BUM BAM BUM!
Why didn't Mr. Congress put the true costs on the graph? Would they be astronomical? Would they be reasonable in governmental terms, but closer scrutiny would reveal that most of the money spent isn't actually helping the poor children?
Fortunately, we won't have to tune in six years from now to find out, because Pres. Bush made the right call and vetoed the bill. Will Mr. Congress present a real plan, or continue to try to make the boss look bad? We'll just have to wait and see.