The article below comes to us from USPS News Link. Please direct any questions or concerns to USPS. You may post your thoughts in the comment section below.
5/1/23 – The new Postal Service Health Benefits (PSHB) Program will begin Jan. 1. 2025.
The PSHB will be a separate program within the Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) Program and will be administered by the Office of Personnel Management.
The PSHB Program will provide coverage for Postal Service employees, annuitants and their eligible family members.
More information, including a FAQ and fact sheet, is available on the PSHB page on LiteBlue.
Employees and retirees can also receive more information and updates by texting “PSHBP” to 39369.
PEN Comments: It is our OPINION that this new health care option will, in the long term, cost postal employees and retirees – if not in actual cost, then in reduced benefits…or both. We do NOT agree with the removal of postal employees and retirees from the FEHB program that they were promised, and were subscribers of, for years. It is almost like our government removing your right to have a union. However, all postal unions lobbied to pass the Postal Reform Act that brought us the PSHB plan.
How do I enroll in Medicare B without penalty?
Read here: https://www.keepingposted.org/pshb-sep.htm
Do we know yet which health insurance carriers will be participating in the PSHB? Will there be HSA plans in the PSHB?
We do not but you can bet the unions will be. None of us know – neither USPS nor OPM will tell us this information until maybe October. Rick – PEN
Question. I’m a survivor annuiant. I suspended my fep health insurance plan in 2020 as I was eligible for Medicare A and B and also have ChampVA as secondary insurance. Will I be required to pick a health care plan in the 2024 open season through PSHB?
I wish we could answer your question, but we cannot. Almost no USPS employee or retiree has been able to get any answers from USPS or OPM…including myself. Rick Owens – PEN
I never took Medicare B back in 2020 when I turned 65. I opted to stay with my FEHB plan.
Now it says if I decide to take Medicare B, I must do so by September 30, 2024 to avoid the penalty. However, the plans through PSHB do not come out until October. How can I make the right decision for myself (whether I should take Medicare) if I don’t know what the PSHB will offer for plans? We should know what the PSHB plans are and the cost before we decide whether Medicare B is the way we should go.
When my spouse died they were a postal worker. They had also worked at the bureau of the census. As a survivor my annuity states I am a Civil Service Annuitant, not a FERS. I have talked to OPM, and they have no answers to the question as to whether I will be affected by this new Healthcare Statute. And be forced to take the PSHB. I need answers & they do not have any. I was told this was an anomaly that was not foreseen. However, there are at least 5% of the Postal workforce that retire with a CSRS not a FERS. Will they be affected? I asked that also, and received no coherent answer.
Mary – we are not an authority on this stupid push for the PSHB program. When your spouse retired was he a CSRS employee or a FERS employee? You are correct – neither OPM nor USPS can answer many questions and concerns regarding this new PSHB program. I have tried and they only provide a link to their FAQ’s…which does not answer many questions.
Don’t know what to tell you – wish I did. All I can do is provide you with the Federal Register notice regarding PSHB. Read it, if you have all day to read. It is long and confusing. Here is the link:
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/04/06/2023-07080/postal-service-reform-act-establishment-of-the-postal-service-health-benefits-program
We should be able to have a class action lawsuit for ALL this confusion. If in the End we get screwed for Misinformation
Does it remind you of this statement by a politician “you just have to pass the bill to see what’s in it.”
For the life of me I cannot see how this forced change will benefit anyone but the government and USPS. Any fool can tell you that the smaller the pool of subscribers the more costly the health plan and the less benefits.
My reply to the editor. Currently people pay medicare so that 330 a month for a couple and lets say NALC insurance rated the best come in at 456 a month……That’s 786 a month . Likely under PSHB the rate will be under my medicare advantage plan and PSHB will be a 85 a month rebate to us or 170 a month on medicare premiums and the PSHB plan will be 235 a month. So that would be 330 medicare less 170 is 160 plus 235 PSHB…….So 405 a month is a lot cheaper than 786 a month. Your OPINE is wrong
I do not believe my opinion is inaccurate and I do not believe your opinion is accurate. I mosst certainly do not agree that the NALC plan is the best health coverage. I believe Federal B/C/ B/S is the best cost and coverage.
However, at this point in time for this idiot PSHB to go into effect absolutely none of us know what the costs will be or the benefits for said plans.
Even OPM states the following:
– It is estimated that the cost of coverage for Postal employees and their eligible family members is slightly higher than for the other Federal employees. The creation of a separate risk pool for Postal Service employees and annuitants will result in premiums that are more reflective of the resulting Postal and non-Postal populations.
– The expected decrease in FEHB plan premiums would be mirrored by a slight increase in PSHB premiums, although this increase would be minimal compared to the expected decrease in premium due to Medicare enrollments, meaning that the likely result will be lower premiums for PSHB plans compared with current FEHB plan premium amounts.
– We estimate that approximately 100,000 Postal Service annuitant subscribers aged 65+ currently enrolled in the FEHB Program are not enrolled in Medicare Part B and, thus, would be eligible for the SEP. Given that these individuals have previously elected not to enroll in Part B, it is estimated that around 30% of current Postal Service annuitants will choose to enroll during the SEP. For these individuals, the additional late enrollment penalties will be transferred to the Postal Service.
Despite the assumption that not all carriers will offer both FEHB plans and PSHB plans, it is likely that the PSRA will increase the total number of plans covering both the Postal and greater FEHB population. This will result in smaller risk pools within each plan, which could lead to greater uncertainty with respect to costs. With smaller risk pools, each enrollee’s health status has a larger impact on total costs. This can create greater variability in annual premiums. Smaller risk pools increase individual plans’ exposure to high-cost outlier events, as there are fewer low or average-cost enrollees to offset these costs. Administrative costs would also be spread across smaller risk pools. To ensure financial solvency in such scenarios, plans may seek to price this additional risk exposure into premiums, resulting in an increase in the aggregate costs for all PSHB plan and FEHB plan enrollees compared to the baseline.
So, as I said, at this point nobody knows what the outcome will be. It is so wrong to push retirees into PSHB coverage. I understand USPS wanting to save money, but doing so on the backs of those who worked hard to retire and have good affordable health coverage is nothing but dirty politics. Rick Owens – PEN
Comment for Janet’s reply………The Federal Register suspending your PSHB……..you can suspend it and or reenter it during open season but only if you enroll into a medicare advantage or Military insurance, a few other that would apply to court settlements. So yes you can
Most questions can be answered by going to the PSHB Federal Register. I found my question. Yes, you can suspend your PSHB run by FEHB and go into a medicare advantage plan. It’s very important if you get the PENALTY off medicare by going into PSHB. Not 100% sure on whether you can then suspend PSHB and then just have medicare advantage as the PS may not pay the penalty…..In any case The PSHB will be cheaper than have both medicare and FEHB, a lot cheaper. Under medicare advantage using PSHB, you would be able to get into a plan and get a $85 rebate on premiums added back into your SS check or Fed Pension check, electronic.
everyone here is correct. OPM has no response to ANY questions sent to them about the new PSHB. & IF they do respond at all its just a reference to other info that tells us absolutely nothing in relationship to any questions. I wonder when we get close to having to enroll they will have any answers then ? Makes me wonder how reliable those answers will be & where those answers came from. I mean if they can’t answer them now, what changed to where they now can answer them when the “bill” that passed hasn’t changed since it passed in April 2022 ?? Yes, very fishey here.
Janet – you are 100% correct. Something very fishy is going on. And, as stated before, you can thank your USPS unions and the democrat politicians. We will be SCREWED! and they know it. Of course, the unions know that their subscriber base will increase due to this stupid law. Rick Owens: PEN
Something “fishy” about PSHB programs. No one knows anything.
You are CORRECT! I wrote the email addresses at USPS and OPM and both of the responses were no help. The USPS email said “we cannot answer your question – contact OPM” – so, I wrote OPM – all they did was send a link to their FAQ’s – which was no help at all. Remember a congress person saying “you’ll just have to pass the bill to see what’s in it”? Well, that is true with PSHB as well. Makes me furious. Rick @ PEN
There is another scenario here. If we do sign up for part B &, suspend our insurance under this new policy, & the PO says they will cover & pay the penalty, who’s to say in the future they won’t default on that payment too? Does Medicare then come back to us & make us start paying a penalty because the USPS defaulted on their end??
The usps already defaulted on $ they were supposed to pre funded our retirement. To the tune of 57 billion. That was all “forgiven” upon implementing this new bill under PSHB.
So if that happens we “could ” drop part B, go back to our insurance under PSHB during “open season” @ a probly sky high premium. Or worse, they could tell us once we take part B we can’t cancel it to return to their plans, ( even though we SUSPENDED their plan to join a medicare advantage plan) Either way, we would be unable to afford ANYTHING as neither choice would end this “train wreck”.
They want us to join medicare part B during a SEP. However, sign up it is only good through September 30. Problem is, we won’t know what carriers will participate, not the premiums & coverage until October. So what “sane” person signs up for that when they have no idea what additional premiums will be? You would probly do better going to Vegas & play the slots with the same outcome – you loose ! No one has the answer to that at OPM. However, OPM did tell me if we didn’t like any of them, we WOULD be able to suspend our PSHB. But no info on what form & when we could do that. End result would be we would be right back where started decades ago when we retired & had to choose Medicare A&B, or stay with FEHB.
This is getting ridiculous. The whole thing has too many unanswered questions & probably not enough time to implement this program. In the end it will probably fail from too many issues that take place after January 1,2025. They claim it will be “as smooth as possible “, but under so many issues & questions already, I don’t see that happening. Seems all of us have similar issues with this so I can’t understand how OPM cannot tell us how all this will work. They don’t have all the facts yet — so they say. Why not ?? This bill was passed, cut & dried, so how is it no one knows how it all will be implemented ??
We are the guinea pigs here, & if it fails where does that leave us then ??
Eventually ALL federal retirees will be put under similar bills & this is NOT fair.
Thanks Janet – Also, this stupid law states the insurance carriers under PSHB program will only have to match what we have now for the first year of coverage – what happens then? Benefits cut and premiums through the roof. Reminds me of “you have to pass the law to see what’s in it.” We are screwed.
Keep your doctor keep your plan and costs less. The NALC didn’t object to prefunding either back in the day. How’s that task force coming on the work floor environment?