Federal Times – USPS wants single health plan for employees, retirees
The U.S. Postal Service wants to create a new, single health care plan for its employees.
Tony Vegliante, the Postal Service’s chief human resources officer and executive vice president, said in an interview Wednesday that concentrating roughly a million postal employees and retirees in a single insurance provider would yield true economies of scale and hold down health care costs for the financially flailing agency.
Postal employees and retirees now get their health insurance through the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP), which offers hundreds of national, regional and local health plans to choose from. The Postal Service recently proposed pulling out of federal health and pension plans and starting its own as a way to cut costs.
Vegliante said FEHBP has “watered down” its negotiating position by dividing 8 million federal and postal employees and retirees among more than 200 plans.
“I don’t see any benefit we’d be deprived of,” Vegliante told Federal Times. “In fact, I see the opposite effect. There’s 207 plans in FEHB — there’s no economy of scale there. I don’t know where the leverage is.”
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