The U.S. Postal Service is in trouble. So Congress is coming to the rescue by debating a proposed “Postal Service Reform Act” (HR 3076) to “stabilize” the independent agency’s financing and put it on a path of fiscal responsibility.
But although the legislation passed Tuesday by the House and now before the Senate might end up digging the Postal Service out of a fiscal hole, it would worsen Medicare’s already weakened financial condition.
The operation is an annual multibillion-dollar loser, but Americans depend on the U.S. mail and are happy to get it, even when it is inexplicably late.
Among the biggest issues facing the Postal Service is how to handle the large chunk of unfunded obligations for retirees’ health benefits. These liabilities amount to a whopping $75 billion, the amount of benefits promised but not financed.
The Government Accountability Office, the congressional watchdog agency, detailed the extent of the Postal Service problem in a 2020 report. It said the Postal Service has accumulated a total debt of $188 billion (about $580 per person in the U.S.), including unfunded health benefit obligations. This amounts to over 250% of annual revenue.
So, what to do? Sponsors of the House bill, which passed with a vote of 342-92 as 120 Republicans joined all Democrats, decided to shift the Postal Service’s health benefit costs to the Medicare program.
read more:
https://www.dailysignal.com/2022/02/10/its-a-bad-idea-to-tap-medicare-to-bail-out-postal-service/
Replies
If the Postal Service were to be "Privatized", could the Bill of Rights be Guaranteed? It didn't work out to well in the Private Sector of Electronic Communications with their " Selective Cencorship!"
Lynn Bryant DeSpain
We all at our ages in retirement reached here with the same choices, given to those still working no matter the income. We all knew in advance Our Social Security would never cover our needs once Retired. We knew that only by setting aside or investing 1/8th to 1/4 of our monthly income into Savings or Investment could we supplement our retirement. We knew also that purchasing a home and assuming the responsibilities of ownership instead of Rent could we create an ever growing Nest Egg and a Residence with minimal costs for Retirement. We all had the same choices of decisions during our Work Careers to choose jobs that included far better Medical Coverage with less Wages. We knew when buying those New Cars that perhaps our Old Ones would be less expensive to maintain than Monthly Payments and Increased Insurance. At all stages of Life accepting responsibility for One's Circumstances has always been far more difficult than laying the blame on others greed and guilt.
Lynn Bryant DeSpain
Pensions,(retirement funds), vacations, medical coverage are all supposed to be enticement to retain good employees. Raises in wages are rewards for performance. "Unions" took these enticement and made them "Mandatory" even for worthless workers in both the Private and Public Sector.
Lynn Bryant DeSpain
And who can't see through this as another deceitful way to benefit the powerful unions who have squandered the pension and medical care benefit funds that the postal workers have been paying into for most or all of their terms of employment? Just another big government scam, and the working folks will pay the bill, as usual.
Of course it's a bad idea!
If the big government elites get their way, the federal government will run ALL health care services in our country. But who do you think is going to pay for it, as usual? And that would inevitably lead to the "death panels" that will decide who is worth spending the money on to let live or to die. A free market in goods and services is the only answer, and the major pollutant in any free market is almost always the government.
the ruling class uses the medicare scam to fund everything they can, other than using the funds to care for the millions of us who have paid into it!!!!! I paid the maximum for most of my working life and now, at 72, the government is withholding $170 per month from my socialist security to continue paying for the medicare that I barely use!!!! I have a physical exam every year but that is the only time I use medicare and part of that is paid by the supplemental policy I am required to carry because medi(not)care only pays 80%, leaving me out another $100+ per month!!!!! The embezzlement and misuse of confiscated money is outrageous but neither political party has any intention of changing it because they are stealing plenty for themselves!!!!!!!!!!
As with all Government Bureaucratic Systems, they suffer from being "Top Heavy" with Management, and are the epitome of the "Peter Principal" where people advance to the height of their incompetence and remain there. All the more reasons for running the entire system as if it were a Private Enterprise.
Lynn Bryant DeSpain
With all due respect, the government cannot run anything as if it were a private enterprise. All governments seek a monopoly and stifle competition, at least, in the words of Maggie Thatcher, until they run out of other people's money.
Privatize it! The government hasn't run anything afficiently, only into the ground at huge expense.
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