Open Season For Health Benefits Starts Monday, Nov. 8
It’s Open Season — the time of year when employees can sign up for benefit programs, change enrollments, or cancel their participation.
Open Season for three benefits programs — Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB), Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA), and the Federal Employees Dental and Vision Insurance Program (FEDVIP) — begins Monday, Nov. 8.
FEHB and FEDVIP plans have changed significantly. For example, the 2010 Affordable Care Act changed FEHB eligibility requirements allowing children up to age 26 as eligible dependents for Self and Family coverage (Link, 8/17). Employees are asked to note that even if they keep the same FEHB plans and coverage automatically continues, their premiums may change. It’s also recommended that employees check their insurance coverage for details that could save them money. For example, if you’re enrolled in a family plan but no one else is covered by that plan, changing to the “Self Only” option will reduce your premiums.
Employees with FEHB plans that no longer will be offered must select a new plan or their health insurance coverage will end. Affected employees will receive a letter from the plan and from the Postal Service. Employees whose plan’s service area is changing also will be notified.
FSA — which can save money on taxes for eligible out-of-pocket health care and dependent care expenses — also has changed. The Health Care FSA has added restrictions on coverage for over-the-counter drugs and medicines. Also, children who are not dependents on your taxes may now be covered under your Health Care FSA until Dec. 31 of the year before they turn age 27. Employees who want an FSA for 2011 need to re-enroll — FSA coverage does not continue from year to year. FSA brochures with more details now are being mailed to all employees.
You can make FEHB and FSA selections on PostalEASE. For FEDVIP elections, go to www.benefeds.com.
Open Season for the Annual Leave Exchange (ALE) begins Monday, Nov. 15. Employees eligible to make an ALE election will receive a letter.
FEHB, FSA and FEDVIP booklets will be arriving in the mail. Look for the information and save it when it arrives. Additional Open Season information is in today’s edition of the Postal Bulletin. You also can go to the “My HR” section on LiteBlue for more details.
You will need your employee identification number (EIN) and USPS personal identification number (PIN) to enter PostalEASE or LiteBlue. Forget your PIN? Click here to read “Got Your Number?” in yesterday’s Link for help.
source: USPS News Link
Federal Employees 2011 Open Season for Health Benefits, Dental, Vision Insurance and FSA
From the Office Of Personnel Management
• The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has announced that this year’s open season for health benefits, dental and vision insurance, and Flexible Spending Accounts will run from November 8 through December 13, 2010. This open season will give federal employees and retirees the opportunity to change their health-care coverage and employees who are not enrolled, but are eligible to participate, the opportunity to elect coverage.
• Each year, OPM enters into annual negotiations with each FEHB carrier, historically enabling the program to hold premium increases below industry averages and secure good benefits value for enrollees and their families.
• Premiums for the 2011 FEHB Program will rise by an average 7.2 percent for the enrollee share of premiums. This increase is below last year’s premium increase of 8.8 percent and lower than rate hikes predicted for large, employer-sponsored health programs by benefit consultants such as Aon, Milliman, and Price Waterhouse Coopers, which are estimating 2011 premium increases between 8.9 percent and 10.5 percent.
• In January 2011, there will be 207 health plan options in the FEHB Program.
• The Affordable Care Act extends important new benefits to FEHB enrollees and strengthens the program. Preventive care and screenings will be available with no out-of-pocket costs and enrollees will have the right to add their young adult children under the age of 26 to their family health plan. According to an OPM analysis, and consistent with independent reports, these new consumer protections account for a 1.7 percent increase in premiums.
• Additionally, all FEHB plans are fully compliant with the insurance reforms required by the Affordable Care Act and, in the case of preventive care, FEHB plans have extended benefits ahead of when they were required to do so by the Act.
• Enrollees with self-only coverage will pay, on average, $5.53 more each pay period and enrollees with family coverage will pay $11.45 more per pay period. FEHB enrollees pay, on average, 30 percent of the total cost of the plan’s premium while the government pays 70 percent.
• Enrollees in the Blue Cross Blue Shield Standard Option, the most popular FEHB plan choice, will see their share of the premium increase by 6.9 percent for self-only coverage and 7.6 percent for self and family coverage.
• All FEHB plans will offer tobacco cessation benefits in compliance with the U.S. Public Health Services’ 2008 clinical guidance on tobacco cessation. This includes full coverage (no enrollee co-payments) for seven FDA-approved medications, four counseling sessions per quit attempt, and two quit attempts per year.
• Five FEHB plans have increased benefits for hearing devices and/or other assistive devices and twelve FEHB plans currently provide coverage for hearing aids and/or assistive technology devices.
• Sixteen FEHB plans will offer testing for up to four transplant donors for bone marrow and stem cell transplants.
• Two health plans, GEHA and Mail Handlers, will pilot coordination of benefits with Medicare, whereby the FEHB plan will contribute toward the cost of the enrollee’s Medicare Part B premium in return for the enrollee accepting the same cost sharing (e.g. copayment/coinsurance) as non-Medicare enrollees. Medicare enrollees may voluntarily participate in these pilot programs. Currently, these plans waive some cost sharing for enrollees with Medicare coverage.
Non-Dependent Children Can Join FEHBP Next Year
Non-dependent children can join FEHBP as of January 1st, 2011. The child doesn’t have to be your own. It can be your gay partner’s or someone else’s. If it is your own child, the child can be married and have their own employer-sponsored insurance. Almost any child living with a federal employee can be added. See the attachments from OPM. Some employees and retirees may overlook this important benefit change this Open Season.
OPM’s definition of “Foster Child” and “Step Child” is at
http://www.opm.gov/insure/health/reference/handbook/fehb28.asp#FosterChildren.
Changes for Federal Benefits Programs under the Affordable Care Act
http://www.opm.gov/retire/pubs/bals/2010/10-201.pdf
Attachment: Health Reform Changes for Federal Benefits Programs Effective January 1, 2011
http://www.opm.gov/retire/pubs/bals/2010/10-201attachment.pdf
Mailers:Postal Employees Over Compensation Costs USPS And Public Needless $Billions Annually
Filed under: Benefits, mailers, postal, postal news, PRC, usps
“The Affordable Mail Alliance – a growing coalition of nearly 1,000 non-profits, Fortune 500 companies, small businesses, major trade associations, consumer groups, and citizens representing the vast majority of the mail sent in the United States – submitted further comments to the Postal Regulatory Commission yesterday. The comments focused on last week’s hearings at the Commission, where the Postal Service admitted that it is not facing an immediate cash crisis – the original rationale for demanding a rate increase ten times the rate of inflation.”
Excerpts:
The Postal Service’s August 2 Response and testimony on August 10-12 also confirm the Postal Service’s failure to show that it would face a cash crisis—or suffer any losses at all—if it adhered to “best practices of honest, efficient, and economical management.” 39 U.S.C. § 3622(d)(1)(E). The Alliance’s July 26 motion summarizes decades of official reports, from the 1968 Kappel Commission to the present, documenting the Postal Service’s inefficiencies and the uneconomic costs that result from them. Specifically:
• The Postal Service maintains an inefficiently large network of undersized and obsolete mail processing facilities. Motion at 21-25.
• The Postal Service has an oversized work force, inflexible work rules, and low productivity. Id. at 25-30.
• The total compensation of Postal Service employees—more than $80,000 per employee on average—is well above the amounts paid in the private sector for comparable work. According to the Postal Service’s own experts, this compensation premium is probably more than 30 percent. This inefficiency costs the Postal Service and the public $10 to 14 billion or more in needless costs annually. Id. at 30-34, 55-56.
The loss of mail volume to the Internet was not an unforeseeable surprise. The Postal Service had notice of this threat years before significant volume losses occurred. Id. at 35-39.
• The Postal Service’s failure to cope effectively with the 2008-2009 recession is further evidence of structural inefficiency. The average firm in the private sector saw its revenues collapse by nearly as much as the Postal Service; and many large firms saw their revenues collapse by 20 percent or more. Well-run private firms, including the Postal Service’s competitors, responded to the downturn with immediate headcount reductions and other aggressive and painful austerity measures that resulted in a return to profit relatively quickly, even while sales volume and revenue remained depressed. The Postal Service, by contrast, contented itself with a business-as-usual incremental approach to cost cutting that allowed productivity to plummet and unit costs to get further out of control. Id. at 39-55.5
• The Postal Service’s financial loss projections in this case assume no major improvements in cost control in the future. Id. at 55-57
The Postal Service has many cost-saving opportunities available to it that remain to be pursued seriously. Given the magnitude of the Postal Service’s inefficiencies, even a modest improvement could result in billions of dollars of additional savings annually. For example:
(1) The Postal Service makes much of the supposed legal obstacles to closing retail post offices. But the Postal Service cites no legal obstacles (including restrictive language in appropriations bills) to the closure of most Processing & Distribution Centers and other central mail processing facilities. Since 2005, however, the Postal Service has closed only 2 of its 270 P&DCs. “U.S. Postal Service: Strategies and Options to Facilitate Progress toward Financial Viability,” Report No. GAO-10-455 (April 2010) at 13-14, 31. Instead, the Postal Service boasts because it saved $68 million—only about 1/10 of one percent of total USPS revenues—from area mail processing consolidations (“AMPs”) in the past year. Tr. 1/60-61 (Corbett).
(2) A number of enterprises in the United States have asked their employees to reopen existing collective bargaining agreements in light of the recession. See Motion to Dismiss (Aug. 2, 2010) at 15, 45-46. Given the supposedly parlous state of the Postal Service’s finances, reopening of existing collection bargaining agreements with postal labor would be a logical step. During the August 10 hearing, however, USPS witness Corbett admitted that he was completely unaware of whether such relief would be sought. Tr. 1/100.
(3) Two of the Postal Service’s national collective bargaining agreements expire in November 2010 (with the American Postal Workers Union and the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association), and two more in November 2011 (with the National Association of Letter Carriers and National Postal Mail Handler Union). The expiration of these agreements presents a timely opportunity to negotiate reductions in head counts, greater freedom to employ layoffs and furloughs, and improved flexibility in work rules and employee utliization. Successful negotiations could narrow, or even eliminate entirely, the forecast 10-year shortfall.
(4) The expiration of the same collective bargaining agreements also presents a timely opportunity to deal with the more than $10 billion in above-market compensation that the Postal Service concedes it pays. The Postal Service, however, already appears to have taken the renegotiation of these compensation premiums off the table. Tr. 1/120-121 (Corbett). Instead, the Postal Service appears content simply to try to reduce its share of the total cost of the health benefit packages—from the current 81% down to 72%, the percentage paid by other federal agencies. Id. Even a full nine-point reduction would save the Postal Service only about $750 million per year. This is a small fraction of the $10 to $14 billion or more in excess costs that the Postal Service incurs each year because of the existing compensation premiums. Moreover, even these limited savings would occur with halting slowness: the Postal Service does not seek to increase the employee contribution by more than one percentage point per year. Tr. 1/121 (Corbett).
At that pace, even the $750 million savings target will not be reached until 2020.
(5) The Postal Service suggests that seeking relief in arbitration from inflexible hiring and work rules and above-market compensation premiums is useless because arbitrators tend simply to rubber-stamp the status quo. USPS Response at 31-33. But the Postal Service has not invoked its right under 39 U.S.C. § 1207 to arbitrate its major collective bargaining agreements in years, and certainly not since the beginning of the recent recession. It is premature to assume without exhausting the arbitration remedy that arbitrators today would ignore the supposedly “extraordinary” and “exceptional” economic developments since the last arbitration decisions, and the desperate financial straits the Postal Service says it now faces as a
result. This is particularly so given the number of economic concessions made by unionized employees of state and municipal government employees downturn. Motion to Dismiss (July 26, 2010) at 45-46; Brophy (Consumers Union) Impact Statement. At a minimum, best practices of “honest, efficient and economical management” certainly require that the Postal Service at least exhaust its administrative remedies under 39 U.S.C. § 1207 rather than throwing up its hands and shifting $3 billion in costs annually to mailers as the stakeholders of first resort.
(6) Finally, the Postal Service’s analysis of the legal implications of the “honest, efficient and economical” standard is as inaccurate and one-sided as the Postal Service’s discussion of the facts. The notion that the standard of “honest, efficient and economical management” requires the regulator to ignore inefficiencies that result from past decisions by the regulated company (USPS response at 23-25) is contrary to precedent and would have perverse consequences. It is well-established, for example, that the standard of
honest, efficient and economical management supports the disallowance of capital investment in long-lived assets as imprudent when made, even though the investment was the result of past decisions, and is now sunk and irrevocable. Missouri ex rel. Southwestern Bell Tel. Co. v. PSC, 262 U.S. 276 (1923); Verizon Communications Inc. v. FCC, 535 U.S. 467, 485-486 (2002). Indeed, the regulator may deny a regulated company a return on a sunk longlived investment that was prudent when made but “rendered useless by
unforeseen events.” Verizon, 535 U.S. at 484 n. 6 (citing Duquesne Light Co. v. Barasch, 488 U. S. 299, 311-312 (1989)).
In any event, a very large share of the Postal Service’s excess costs is neither fixed nor sunk. Inefficient Processing and Distribution Centers, for example, can be closed or consolidated in a relatively short period. Likewise, as previously discussed, the Postal Service’s major collective bargaining agreements are up for renegotiation when they expire this year or next, even if the Postal Service is unwilling to seek to reopen them during their term.8 as well as private sector employees—including the unionized employees of the Postal Service’s customers—since the beginning of the current economic downturn. Motion to Dismiss (July 26, 2010) at 45-46; Brophy (Consumers Union) Impact Statement. At a minimum, best practices of “honest, efficient and economical management” certainly require that the Postal Service at least exhaust its administrative remedies under 39 U.S.C. § 1207 rather than throwing up its hands and shifting $3 billion in costs annually to mailers as the stakeholders of first resort.
see full pdf file submitted to PRC
NALC Joins Other Labor Unions In Urging Senate to Drop Tax on Health Plans
Joint Letter Delivered to Senate Majority Leader Reid
NALC President Fred Rolando, in a joint letter with leaders of four other major labor unions, urged Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) December 1 to seek an alternative in pending health care legislation to a proposed excise tax on health insurance plans that would unjustly penalize millions of middle-income workers.
Speaking for about 5 million members, the five labor leaders applauded Reid’s dedication and sustained hard work in moving the health care reform agenda forward. But they said they were “deeply troubled” by the excise tax proposal affecting health care plans whose costs exceed certain benchmarks.
“While we appreciate the significant challenges inherent in paying for quality health insurance reform we need and support, we continue to believe that an excise tax on [so-called ‘Cadillac’] health care plans is both bad politics and bad policy,” the five said. “In fact, the tax would have a devastating impact on exactly the type of good, comprehensive health care plans reform should be promoting.”
Joining in the letter along with Rolando were Communications Workers President Larry Cohen, Teamsters President James P. Hoffa, United Food and Commercial Workers President Joseph T. Hansen, and National Education Association President Dennis Van Roekel.
Instead of curbing excessive benefits for executives, they said the tax would adversely impact millions of workers under collectively bargained health plans. While the tax technically is on insurance companies that offer plans above a certain threshold, this additional cost would simply be passed along to workers, the union leaders said.
“Both employees in the private and public sectors could possibly have their benefits reduced or premiums raised,” they warned.
They pointed out that the excise tax would have a discriminatory impact on plans that cover older workers and retirees, or workers in high cost regions or high risk occupations, or plans primarily serving women. Moreover, the net result of the 40 percent excise tax would be to force many plans to cut back important benefits and encourage employers to cut back on family coverage.
“We know that health insurance reform can be paid for through cost savings both inside and outside of the health care system without a new excise tax on insurance plans,” the five said. “As the debate moves forward, we urge you to continue to look for ways to eliminate the excise tax and develop a program that does not penalize our members.”
NALC news Bulletin: http://nalc.org/news/bulletin/PDF2009/Bull09-21.pdf
FERS Sick Leave Credit Passes House-Senate Conference Committee (No More FERS Flu)
RE-EMPLOYED ANNUITANT AND FERS SICK LEAVE BILLS IN FINAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION
NARFE, October 7, 2009
National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association (NARFE) President Margaret L. Baptiste today praised Senators Carl Levin, D-MI, and John McCain, R-AZ, and Reps. Ike Skelton, D-MO, and Howard P. “Buck” McKeon, R-CA, (the chairs and ranking members of their respective chambers’ Armed Services Committees) and other members of the Fiscal Year 2010 Defense Authorization conference committee for including several civil service improvements in the final legislation.
The final agreement would allow federal agencies to re-employ federal retirees on a limited, part-time basis without offset of annuity; permit Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) workers to initially credit half, and later all, of their unused sick leave toward retirement; and provide for retirement equity for Federal employees in Hawaii, Alaska and the U.S. Territories. The Conference Agreement is expected to pass the House and Senate.
“During the past several years, NARFE has played a leading role, along with other federal and postal employee organizations, in overcoming several obstacles to pass these needed civil service improvements,” President Baptiste said. “For example, absent NARFE’s persistence, legislation (S. 629) sponsored by Senators Susan Collins, R-ME, Herb Kohl, D-WI, and George Voinovich, R-OH, to allow federal retirees to be re-employed by the government would not have been included in the final Defense bill. Many Federal retirees continue to make critical contributions to our safety and well-being during this time of national need and when workforce shortages have deprived some agencies of employees with critical and specialized skills,” Baptiste said. “This is a victory for active and retired federal employees.”
Baptiste was particularly pleased that a compromise was reached on the FERS sick leave legislation by phasing in the allowance. When Congress created FERS in 1986, the benefit of allowing workers to apply their unused sick leave toward retirement was traded off for other FERS benefits not available under the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS). “However, with the benefit of 23 years of hindsight, we recognize that the inequity in the treatment of accrued sick leave between FERS and CSRS has hurt productivity and increased agency costs. For that reason, we have strongly supported the concept that all federal civilian retirement programs credit unused sick leave toward retirement,” Baptiste said.
The NARFE president specifically lauded Rep. James Moran, D-VA, for introducing his own FERS sick leave equity bill (H.R. 958) and for being a long-time champion of the issue. Baptiste also commended Reps. Edolphus Towns, D-NY, Stephen Lynch, D-MA, and Senators Joseph Lieberman, I-CT, Susan Collins, R-ME, Daniel Akaka, D-HI and James Webb, D-VA, who served as the Defense bill conferees, for helping to persuade their colleagues to include the civil service provisions. In addition, she thanked Reps. Steny Hoyer, D-MD, Chris Van Hollen, D-MD, Frank Wolf, R-VA, Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-DC, Gerry E. Connolly, D-VA, Paul Sarbanes, D-MD, Donna Edwards, D-MD, Elijah Cummings, D-MD, and C.A. “Dutch” Ruppersberger, D-MD, for the significant role they played in this victory on behalf of NARFE and the federal/postal community.
# # #
NARFE, one of America’s oldest and largest associations, was founded in 1921 with the mission of protecting the earned rights and benefits of America’s active and retired federal workers. The largest federal employee/ retiree organization, NARFE represents the retirement interests of nearly 5 million current and future federal annuitants, spouses, and survivors.
FERS Sick Leave Credit Bill Still Alive
House Approves Bill That Includes FERS Sick Leave Credit
H.R. 2990 (Disabled Military Retiree Relief Act of 2009) would ‘provide that federal employees receive credit for unused sick leave when determining annuity if they have not been paid for those days. The bill also enables federal employees to deposit refunds of retirement deductions with interest under the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS). Additionally, certain District of Columbia employees who transfer to federal employment would be eligible for federal retirement credit.”
Other portions of the bill includes:
This legislation seeks to expand the number of military “Chapter 61″ retirees-a reference to the section of the U.S. Code covering the military disability retirement plan-that would be allowed to receive their full military retired pay plus veterans’ disability compensation. This is a change from current law in which retirement pay is typically reduced dollar-for-dollar by any amount received in disability compensation
Retired Pay Benefits: H.R. 2990 would adjust retired military pay and grade for reserve members who are recalled to active status and who complete at least two years of service in active status. These adjustments would be retroactive to January 1, 2008.
The bill would also expand for nine months (January through September 2010) the eligibility for concurrent receipt of both military retired pay and veterans’ disability compensation for all Chapter 61 disability retirees, regardless of their disability rating or years of service.
Compensation and Benefits for Service Members: H.R. 2990 would extend for one year certain bonus and special pay authorities for reserve forces, health care professionals serving in the Selected Reserve, as well as nuclear officers. Additionally, the bill would extend for one year certain authorities for special pay, incentive pay and bonuses for military personnel. This includes hazardous duty pay, reenlistment bonuses, referral bonuses, skill incentive pay, and retention incentives for service members assigned to high priority units.
CBO Report Pegs Cost Of Modifying Retirement Benefits Calculation For CSRS Part-Time Employees
According to Govexec.com: “A bill aimed at modifying the way retirement benefits are calculated for certain federal employees who work part-time at the end of their careers would cost the government $39 million from 2010 to 2019, the Congressional Budget Office reported this week.”
“The legislation (S. 469), sponsored by Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, would modify the way retirement annuities are calculated for employees covered under the Civil Service Retirement System. Currently, CSRS employees who retire with part-time service late in their careers could see reduced annuities.”
“According to the CBO report, the bill would provide an average of $2,000 more in retirement benefits per year for about 650 of the expected retirees from the CSRS system in 2010. Additional retirements by 2019 would boost the overall cost of the measure to $39 million, according to CBO.”
“At the same time, the budget office reported, a bill that would let agencies rehire retirees without cutting their annuities would not cost taxpayers extra.”
The Basis for Congressional Budget Office Cost Estimate :
Under current law, a CSRS employee with service prior to April 7, 1986, who works part-time at the end of his or her career may receive a lower annuity than an otherwise identical employee whose part-time service occurred earlier. In either case, the employee will receive a total retirement benefit that results from the sum of two annuity calculations—one for service before April 7, 1986, and one for service on or after that date. A major factor in the calculation of a federal retirement annuity is an employee’s “high-3,” the average of the three highest consecutive years of salary. Often, an employee’s highest three years of salary occur in the final three years of service. For employees with part-time service in their career, the basis on which the high-3 is calculated is different for service prior to April 7, 1986, than for service after that, which may result in a lower annuity for employees who work part-time at the end of their careers.
S. 469 would change the calculation of retirement benefits for employees with part-time service to treat all service the same. As a result, annual spending for civil service retirement would rise by amounts growing from $1 million in 2010 to $6 million in 2019; overall, enacting the legislation would increase direct spending by $39 million between 2010 and 2019. CBO assumes the bill will be enacted near the end of fiscal year 2009, which would affect benefits for about 650 new CSRS retirees in 2010 (the number of new retirees would decline annually thereafter, as CSRS is a closed retirement system with no new entrants). The Office of Personnel Management estimates that the average increase in value of retirement benefits for eligible employees as a result of this bill would be about $2,000 a year.
Related Link: A Risk in Going Part-Time
OPM Updates Benefits Checklist Upon Death of a Federal Employee
From PostalReporter reader:
OPM updated their “Summary of Benefits Checklist Upon the Death of a Federal Employee” that agencies, like USPS, are supposed to use. The PDF file is posted at http://www.opm.gov/retire/pubs/bals/2009/09-102attachment2.pdf. This would be a useful reference for those people planning for or facing this situation. Who knows how helpful HRSSC would be?
OPM Issues Proposed Changes To Federal Employees Dental and Vision Insurance Program
From the Office Of Personnel Management via Federal Register
The U. S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is issuing proposed regulations on changes in the Federal Employees Dental and Vision Insurance Program (FEDVIP). We are amending the regulations to authorize retroactive enrollment changes when an enrollee has lost his or her spouse through death or divorce or the enrollee’s last eligible child dies, marries, or reaches age 22. We are also amending the regulations to add that an individual may enroll 31 days before the enrollee or an eligible family member loses other dental and/or vision coverage. We are also amending the regulations to clarify the reference to excluded positions in 5 U.S.C. 8901(1). We are also including in the regulations certain Senate restaurant employees who are employees of the Architect of the Capitol as individuals who are eligible to elect to continue enrollment in FEDVIP if they are eligible and elect to continue their retirement coverage.