Lawmakers sound alarm on administration of USPS health care program

Congressional Democrats last week warned of the potential for “severe consequences” for postal employees, retirees and their families as they attempt to navigate the annual open season for health insurance benefits due to understaffing at the Office of Personnel Management.

This fall will mark the second open enrollment season for postal workers and retirees under the new Postal Service Health Benefits Program. Though OPM officials had previously seen its launch as an opportunity to develop new reforms for its counterpart for other federal civilian workers—the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program—the Trump administration’s hiring freeze and government-wide purge of federal civil servants could jeopardize the program.

At the heart of the matter is that OPM was slated to take control of PSHB’s underlying data platform from the contractor who developed it this year. But a combination of Trump’s hiring freeze with initiatives to reduce the federal headcount like the Deferred Resignation Program, left OPM with just three IT employees of the 11 that the agency says it needs to support it, according to a July inspector general’s report.

In a letter to OPM Director Scott Kupor, Sens. Gary Peters, D-Mich., and Jack Reed, D-R.I., and Reps. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., and Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said that according to an OPM briefing with congressional staffers, the agency has allocated just three part-time workers—adding up to 1.3 full time equivalents—and one contractor to service the PSHB data platform, still less than half of the resources OPM projected it needs devoted to the project.

“OPM has shared with our offices updated information on its staffing levels and resource allocation, and the administration recently requested a funding anomaly,” the lawmakers wrote. “However, we remain concerned that steps taken by OPM are inadequate to fully and successfully administer the PSHB program during the upcoming open enrollment season, and thus risk the coverage of thousands of postal employees and retirees.”

OPM had the option to extend its contract with the vendor who built the data platform for an additional year, but failed to do so, they wrote.

“Yet, as a result of recent staffing shortages OPM has shifted course and is in the process of awarding a new contract for operations and maintenance support of PSHB,” the letter states. “This development raises questions about why OPM incentivized necessary IT staff to depart, while also simultaneously failing to renew its contract earlier this year. OPM also noted that due to resources constraints they ‘are maintaining the systems supporting the PSHB program and not adding significant new features.’”

The mishandling of PSHB and mixed signals to Congress and other stakeholders reflects a larger pattern of disfunction at OPM, the lawmakers wrote.

“Since January, OPM has failed to provide a consistent picture of its funding needs, or a long-term plan to finance the program, including for any improvements to existing features or ongoing maintenance,” they wrote. “Should operational failure occur, the PSHB program could incur significant loss of functionality with the electronic enrollment system with immediate serious consequences. These consequences would include the loss of trusted PSHB program enrollment data, the inability to on- or off-board members, and the inability for OPM to interact with PSHB carriers.”