The Office of Personnel Management still has less than half of the IT staff needed to support postal workers’ employer-sponsored health insurance program as it prepares for its second-ever open season this fall.
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.
