Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Government agencies often build systems with considering other government agencies, not taxpayers, as the customer.

I hate to keep writing about healthcare.gov, but the lessons are so obvious. I have to wonder who is in charge and what they are thinking.

It was the early 1990s, and the management fad of the day was Total Quality Management – TQM. A big part of TQM was satisfying your customer. So, we asked, “who is my customer?”

The answer was simple, “My boss is my customer. If I satisfy my boss, I am rewarded.”

The taxpayer? That person who pays the money for the government to operate? They were too far removed from my world to be considered my customer.

Consider HealthCare.gov – the epitome of a government project that attempts to serve its customer.

The citizen taxpayer as customer: The citizen wants quick information. How much coverage do the different plans provide? How much do the different plans cost? Do I qualify for tax credits to help pay for my coverage? How much is my credit? When must coverage begin? What is the penalty for not having insurance?

Government agencies as customer: The agencies want the citizens’ information: address, name, identifiers, income, family size.

Now look at the site. What happens first? It is clear that the primary customers are government agencies. The citizen taxpayers are secondary.

Serving the public? People first? Not.