{"id":32058,"date":"2022-04-12T09:38:03","date_gmt":"2022-04-12T14:38:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/?p=32058"},"modified":"2022-04-12T09:38:03","modified_gmt":"2022-04-12T14:38:03","slug":"postal-reform-act-establishes-the-postal-service-health-benefits-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/2022\/04\/12\/postal-reform-act-establishes-the-postal-service-health-benefits-program\/","title":{"rendered":"Postal Reform Act Establishes the Postal Service Health Benefits Program"},"content":{"rendered":"

From USPS News Link<\/a> – 4\/12\/22<\/em><\/p>\n

The Postal Service reform legislation that President Biden signed into law on April 6 will involve changes to employees\u2019 health and retirement benefits.<\/p>\n

USPS understands that employees have many questions, so here are a few things to know:<\/p>\n

\u2022 The law establishes the Postal Service Health Benefits (PSHB) Program, which will provide health insurance to USPS career employees, retirees and their dependents, beginning Jan. 1, 2025.<\/p>\n

\u2022 The PSHB program, to be administered by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, will be structured similarly to the Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) Program. The employer\/employee cost-sharing contributions for premiums will be determined by the Postal Service\u2019s collective bargaining and pay consultation processes.<\/p>\n

\u2022 USPS employees and retirees can make their PSHB plan selections during the open season benefits enrollment period that occurs in November and December 2024.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Beginning in January 2025, the new law will require all newly Medicare-eligible USPS annuitants and their Medicare-eligible covered family members to enroll in Medicare Part B to maintain their postal health coverage.<\/p>\n

The Postal Service will provide employees and retirees with more detailed information about the PSHB program in the months to come.<\/p>\n

\n

From PEN:<\/p>\n

I think all of us know and understand that the larger the pool of employees or retirees covered under a health plan the lower your cost, as a health care subscriber, will be and probably you will have greater the coverage. Current postal employees and retirees have the option of being covered by a Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) Program. OPM states<\/a> the following regarding the subscriber pool under FEHB:<\/p>\n

“The Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) Program became effective in 1960. It is the largest employer-sponsored group health insurance program in the world, covering over 8 million Federal employees, retirees, former employees, family members, and former spouses.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Please explain to me how a smaller subscriber pool will benefit you and your family…how?<\/p>\n

In their article, above, USPS states “The PSHB program, to be administered by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, will be structured similarly to the Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) Program. The employer\/employee cost-sharing contributions for premiums will be determined by the Postal Service\u2019s collective bargaining and pay consultation processes<\/strong>.”<\/em> The last part really worries me – it also explains to me why postal unions were so in favor of passing this act. I would certainly prefer a pool of 8 million determining my health insurance coverage and costs verses a greatly lessened pool of possible subscribers, USPS, and postal unions.<\/p>\n

Rick Owens
\nPEN<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From USPS News Link – 4\/12\/22 The Postal Service reform legislation that President Biden signed into law on April 6 will involve changes to employees\u2019 health and retirement benefits. USPS understands that employees have many questions, so here are a few things to know: \u2022 The law establishes the Postal Service Health Benefits (PSHB) Program, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32059,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking","last_archivepost"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32058"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32058\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32060,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32058\/revisions\/32060"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}