Postal Service Employees Dump ObamaCare..."too costly" plus Storm'n Norm'n provides some insight to USPS waste...it's all in the ads

"The USPS said the programs do not meet “the private sector comparability standard,” a statement that could be translated as meaning that government plans are too generous and too costly."  see full story below Postal Service... pulling out of health-care plan

Buried somewhere in over 1200 responses I wrote the following:

From the time I was old enough to run around town holding on to my dad's hand while he made his monthly rounds to pay his bills down at the city hall, the insurance company, the bank, and wherever else, the post office was as routine a stop as the all the rest. I'm quite sure other people had the same routes to cover so it goes without saying that all of us growing up in America knew that the post office was the place to go for stamps and that any of those olive drab (later painted blue) boxes scattered around town was the place to mail a letter. We also knew that packages had to be brought to the post office to be weighed before mailing. In other words, the post office was the only game in town for mailing just about anything and we didn't have to be reminded by some advertisement. So along comes FEDEX and UPS and instantly we learned that the private sector was more efficient than the post office. So just to prove that they were indeed inefficient the post office decided to waste millions of dollars on advertising so that all of us previously trained by our parents knew where to go to buy a stamp and mail a package. The post office and/or any other government entity does not need to waste money on advertising...but I thought everybody knew that! ~ Norman E. Hooben

Postal Service proposes cutting 120,000 jobs, pulling out of health-care plan
From the Washington Post
By Joe Davidson

SEATTLE — The financially strapped U.S. Postal Service is proposing to cut its workforce by 20 percent and to withdraw from the federal health and retirement plans because it believes it could provide benefits at a lower cost.
The layoffs would be achieved in part by breaking labor agreements, a proposal that drew swift fire from postal unions. The plan would require congressional approval but, if successful, could be precedent-setting, with possible ripple effects throughout government. It would also deliver a major blow to the nation’s labor movement.
In a notice informing employees of its proposals — with the headline “Financial crisis calls for significant actions” — the Postal Service said, “We will be insolvent next month due to significant declines in mail volume and retiree health benefit pre-funding costs imposed by Congress.”
During the past four years, the service lost $20 billion, including $8.5 billion in fiscal 2010. Over that period, mail volume dropped by 20 percent.
The USPS plan is described in two draft documents obtained by The Washington Post. A “Workforce Optimization” paper acknowledges its “extraordinary request” to break its labor contracts.
“However, exceptional circumstances require exceptional remedies,” the document says.
“The Postal Service is facing dire economic challenges that threaten its very existence. . . . If the Postal Service was a private sector business, it would have filed for bankruptcy and utilized the reorganization process to restructure its labor agreements to reflect the new financial reality,” the document continues.
In a white paper on health and retirement benefits, the USPS said it was imperative to rein in health benefit and pension costs, which are a third of its labor expenses.
For health insurance plans, the paper said, the Postal Service wanted to withdraw its 480,000 pensioners and 600,000 active employees from the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program “and place them in a new, Postal Service administered” program.
Almost identical language is used for the Civil Service Retirement System and the Federal Employees Retirement System.
The USPS said the programs do not meet “the private sector comparability standard,” a statement that could be translated as meaning that government plans are too generous and too costly.
“FEHB may exceed what the private sector does in certain areas,” said Anthony J. Vegliante, USPS chief human resources officer and executive vice president. “It may not meet what the private sector does in other areas. So cost may be above the private sector, while value may be below the private sector.”
Bills that would rein in employee benefits or have workers pay more for the benefits have been introduced in Congress and met with vigorous opposition from federal employee organizations. Intentionally or not, the Postal Service’s proposal provides support for such legislative initiatives.
The proposals are the USPS’s latest money-saving effort in a series of moves, some as recent as a few weeks ago and others stretching over a decade.