Let’s say you use your computer to pay your bills.

But your hard drive freezes, your motherboard blows up and your monitor issues a puff of smelly smoke.

So, what happens now? You just stop paying your bills for a couple of months, right?

Hey, why not?

You’re a good person, of course, so you call up your credit card company, mortgage company and heating oil company and explain the situation.

And, what do they say? “Gee, sorry to hear about your computer, but that’s your problem. When your bill comes next month, you’ll see a penalty and some interest. Nice talking to you.”

That’s the way it works. Business is business, and candidates for political office are fond of saying they want government to run more like a business.

Well, here’s an opportunity for all the pols in Augusta to act on that desire: When the Department of Health and Human Services is more than 30 days late in paying its providers – the state’s hospitals, doctors and other medical providers – it should pay interest on the money owed.

The DHHS sent up another warning flare Wednesday. Unless it gets an injection of money from the state, it will gradually slow down on payments to providers. In fact, it has already set “caps” on its payments, which means DHHS is limiting payments to the people who provide medical care for the state’s poorest residents.

The reason? Back in January and February, when DHHS’s new computer system wouldn’t work, it stopped making payments to providers. Then, after an outcry, it began making estimated payments to providers.

Some of those estimated payments were, apparently, wildly inflated. As a result, some providers were overpaid by hundreds of millions of dollars.

Now the state is trying to get the money back. It’s coming slowly, too slowly to make full payments to the people and organizations that are actually owed money.

If this sounds like the most bizarre business quagmire you’ve ever seen, you’re right. Some creditors are underpaid, some are overpaid, some aren’t paid at all.

It’s an accounting nightmare.

For years now, DHHS has had a serious inability to manage large sums of money.

Perhaps Gov. John Baldacci, who is ultimately responsible for making sure government runs efficiently and effectively, should make a business-like pledge: When the state owes money, it should pay interest until it pays up.