Total Cost of Ownership is something that comes up a lot in discussions around cost reduction. In pretty much every project I work on, it’s my job to make sure that the cost reduction we achieve is real and sustainable, and we aren’t just trading unit cost or volume reductions for increases in cost somewhere else.

One would hope that government fiscal policy would also consider total cost of ownership. Particularly for Republicans, the self-proclaimed “deficit hawks” that focus on reducing costs by slashing or removing government programs wherever possible, TCO should be critically important. Of course, if you get rid of a government program, that’s a 100% savings, right?

Not really.

Right now the issue of TCO can be highlighted nationally with the debate on federally funded birth control. Republicans want to make sure tax dollars are not being spent to support people’s sex lives. Someone should probably tell those fellas that birth control isn’t merely used for contraception, but beyond that simple, yet conservatively enigmatic point, spending the money on birth control is really the most cost effective solution from a TCO standpoint. Yes, you do have to spend tax dollars. But isn’t it better to spend them preventing unwanted births than dealing with the consequences of them, including the healthcare, homing, schooling and eventual incarceration?

Closer to home in Pennsylvania, Governor Corbett’s Administration is trying to change how the Department of Public Welfare runs an important program called Waiver . Waiver has been a long-standing program in the state that provides lower cost in-home services to people that would otherwise end up in a nursing home. Their proposed changes would create a fragmented system, which will likely lead to more dependent adults and seniors ending up back in nursing homes, thus costing the state more money. The changes would also include getting rid of state-funded care management services to the seniors in this program. The lack of care managers adequately attending to the needy simply means less time dealing with prevention and more time dealing re-active activities. Those activities, which typically include emergency medical attention, cases of negligence and abuse, and homelessness, eventually lead to more costly bills and more tax dollars being spent.

So all this tells me one of two things, either the Republican Party is too dumb to understand TCO, or else they don’t really care. My guess it’s a little of both.
Share To:

Joe Payne

Post A Comment:

0 comments so far,add yours