The House passed legislation (H. R. 3076) on February 8, by a wide majority. Due to a technical issue on the Senate side, the vote was delayed and is now expected to come to a vote next week. It is possible that the Ukraine situation could delay it, but we are hopeful the vote will go forward.
The bill repeals the prefunding of postal retiree health benefits and integrates postal annuitants into the Medicare system which they have been paying into for a long time.

So what does this mean for the mailing industry? It will remove the large pre-funding burden on the USPS® books and in future July Price Changes, the 1% additional rate authority granted by the PRC will mostly disappear saving on Postage.

There are a few items that the bill does not address so additional legislation will be needed in the future.

Some items that were not addressed include:

  • Changing the scope of the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) by restricting certain powers and expanding on others to make their mission more effective.
  • Does not address the additional above CPI Rate Authority that was granted to the USPS by the PRC resulting in twice per year Price Changes on Market Dominant products.
  • Redefining the mission or Universal Service Obligation (USO) of the USPS.
  • Directing the USPS to do a better job of understanding its costs, which its Office of Inspector General (OIG) has urged so that it can price its services accordingly and to ensure there is no cross-subsidization across products.
  • Better define what additional authority to conduct “non-Postal Services” means.

If you would like to reach out to the Senate to pass the reform,  here is a great site to email and get your voice heard.  Here is the link.