LEGISLATION WOULD REALIGN USPS RETIREE HEALTH BENEFITS PAYMENTS
A House postal oversight subcommittee
last week approved legislation that would permit the Postal Service to realign its payments for retiree health benefits for
the next three years. The original legislation (HR 22), introduced by Reps. John McHugh (R-NY) and Danny Davis (D-IL), proposed
eight years.
This would allow USPS to tap
money from its Retiree Health Benefits Fund (RHBF) to pay its annual premiums for retiree health benefits. This would save
the Postal Service $2 billion in FY 2009. The Postal Service on Sept. 30 would still be required to pay $5.4 billion to meet
its annual prefunding obligation.
If the bill becomes law, USPS
would be required once again to pay the cost of healthcare benefits for all retirees in FY 2012 and continue payments until
2016. At that point, the Postal Service’s portion of future retirees’ benefits would be paid from the RHBF. The
fund currently has a balance of more than $32 billion.
The next stop for HR 22 is the
full House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, where it could be considered by the committee sometime following
the July 4 recess.
HR 22 has 337 co-sponsors and
represents the only pending legislation in Congress that has such widespread bipartisan support.
Legislation on this issue has
not been introduced in the Senate.
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