Federal Daily - November 9, 2009

Will USPS Borrow Successful Strategies from Overseas? … Probably Not

A postal expert told lawmakers last week that the financially troubled U.S. Postal Service needs to study the successful retail strategies overseas postal authorities have used to adapt to a changing Internet-driven communications landscape—but he also expressed little optimism that similar strategies would take hold in the United States.

Michael S. Coughlin, a retired deputy postmaster general, testified Nov. 5 before the House Postal Subcommittee, detailing the ways that foreign postal organizations have expanded their retail efforts outside the traditional postal arena. Coughlin noted that postal authorities in other countries, notably Japan and Germany, have significantly grown revenue outside of traditional mail services. He said that while USPS earns about 17 percent of revenues from services other than traditional mail, successful posts in Japan and Germany earn 93percent and 76 percent, respectively, from competitive services.

At the same time, Coughlin said such efforts would have a hard time taking hold here, because they would be hobbled by regulatory and “cultural” limits on what services USPS is permitted to provide.

“In the past, when USPS has attempted to offer such services, there has been very strong and noisy resistance from those who see themselves in competition with the postal offering,” Coughlin said.

Government Accountability Office testimony at the same hearing backed up Coughlin’s pessimism. Past USPS projects to generate additional revenue have achieved only “limited results,” said GAO’s Phillip Herr. GAO also noted that while USPS has asked Congress to pass legislation to allow it to offer competitive services such as banking and insurance, USPS—with outstanding debt over $10 billion and growing—would be assuming even more risk by entering those markets.

To see more, go to: http://oversight.house.gov/index.php?option=com_
content&task=view&id=4670&Itemid=27.

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Lawmaker Says Health Bill Won’t Disrupt FEHBP

Some Republican opponents of healthcare reforms pending in Congress have been claiming that the proposed legislation would affect federal employees’ health insurance—but the chairman of the House Oversight Committee wasn’t having any of it.

House Oversight Committee Chairman Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y., rebutted claims by Republican lawmakers that the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program would be disrupted by health care legislation working its way through Congress. He was responding to criticisms of H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act.

Towns said that nothing in the bill would force federal employees out of FEHBP. “Any suggestion that federal employees may be forced out of insurance coverage and subjected to an additional tax is patently false,” Towns said in a “Dear Colleagues” letter posted on the committee’s Web site on Nov. 5. “Under the health care legislation before the House, federal employees will remain in their current system.”

Towns said that under the bill, feds would enjoy the same improvements offered to everyone, such as automatic enrollment and ending co-payments for preventive care. While FEHBP would be treated like any other employer-sponsored health plan, and subjected to the conditions for coverage and affordability, Towns said the bill would have little impact on FEHBP plans, largely because they already satisfy most of the minimum requirements written into the bill. To see more, go to: http://oversight.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content
&view=article&id=4672:chairman-towns-dismisses-republican-efforts-to-mislead-federal-employees-on-health-care-reform-legislation&catid=3:press-releases&Itemid=49.

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