Charleston Reporter

Locals reacted to a bill that will change USPS employee health care benefits. Industry experts are saying that Amazon systematically takes advantage of the USPS through a variety of measures. 

Amazon has leveraged its volume of packages to be shipped against the USPS’ solvency issues to pin below-market shipping costs for its deliveries. Experts allege that Amazon is using the USPS to support its own logistics and delivery operations, reported Business Insider. Amazon benefits by establishing its delivery hubs in denser zip codes, leaving the more costly deliveries to the USPS, which has a legal obligation to deliver to all addresses.

In an official corporate message, Amazon has expressed support for the Postal Service Reform Act, which will eliminate the USPS’ existing mandate to pre-fund health benefits for retirees and move those funds to the Medicare system. Amazon wants to see the USPS' finances stabilized. U.S. Representative Nancy Mace (R-SC 1st District) is a co-sponsor of the bill.

“I have to question Mace’s understanding of fiscal responsibility when she advocates to add tens of thousands of Medicare recipients years after it is expected to be insolvent for the people who currently depend on it," Berkley County South Carolina resident Jennifer Ort told the Charleston Reporter.  "As a Republican is she trying to push more people into government controlled medicine? Is that a change in the platform that we average Republicans were not made aware of? She should definitely rethink this ill-advised position.”

Amazon’s political operations donated thousands of dollars to Mace in a six-month period last year when the bill was being written. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) anticipates that as a result of the bill a greater number of USPS retirees would choose to enroll in Part B. The legislation also mandates that PSHB join Medicare Part D, and those plans would receive payments pertaining to prescription drugs. 

The CBO anticipates that this would raise Medicare spending by $5.6 billion during the 2021-2031 period. During August 2021, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Boards of Trustees overseeing the Federal Hospital Insurance and Federal Supplementary Medical Insurance Trust Funds told Congress that "[c]urrent-law projections indicate that Medicare still faces a substantial financial shortfall that will need to be addressed with further legislation." They then said that "such legislation should be enacted sooner rather than later to minimize the impact on beneficiaries, providers and taxpayers."

The CMS report went on to estimate that the depletion date for the Hospital Insurance trust fund was 2026, identical to the previous year’s report. The Postal Service Reform Act of 2021 (H.R. 3076) was proposed on May 11, 2021, by U.S. Representative Carolyn Maloney with three co-sponsors. On Dec. 14, 2021, there were 102 co-sponsors with 58 being Democrats and 44 Republicans.

The latest action on the bill was Jan. 21, when the House Committee on Ways and Means granted an extension for further debate through March 18. In July, a report was written by the committee.