Those newly retiring from the Postal Service in 2025 or later generally will have to enroll in Medicare Part B when they become eligible. Image: Maria Dryfhout/Shutterstock.com
OPM has issued interim rules previewing the new health insurance program for Postal Service employees and retirees that is to launch in 2025.
The program, to be called the Postal Service Health Benefits program, in many ways is to mirror the FEHB program while carving out the postal population into a separate pool for determining premium rates. Interim rules in the April 6 Federal Register say that the program will parallel FEHB in ways including:
• Coverage terms and other policies that OPM sets annually in the FEHB “call letter” to carriers will apply to both programs.
• The general requirement under the FEHB to have coverage for the five years before retirement in order to carry coverage into retirement will apply to the PSHB, with time under either program counting toward that requirement.
• Eligibility of family members for coverage will be the same, as will be the types of coverage available (self-only, self plus one and self and family); policies for continuing coverage as a survivor of an enrollee; and rules for coverage of family members required by a court order.
• The annual open season for electing coverage for the following year will be the same although for active employees, PSHB coverage will be effective January 1 rather than the start of the first full pay period of the new year. Also, PSHB enrollments will be made through an upcoming central portal rather than through employing offices.
A major difference will be that to be eligible for the PSHB program, those newly retiring from the Postal Service in 2025 or later generally will have to enroll in Medicare Part B when they become eligible (typically at age 65) and pay the premiums in that program, as well. That requirement will not apply to those already retired before calendar year 2025, to those still employed by the USPS at the end of 2024 who are age 64 or older by that point, nor to retirees living overseas or receiving care through the VA or Indian Health Service.
For federal retirees who have both Medicare Part B and FEHB, the former becomes the primary payer with the latter acting as a supplement. About a quarter of Medicare-eligible federal retirees do not enroll in Part B, largely out of a view that its premiums amount to an extra cost for largely duplicative coverage—although each program offers some benefits the other doesn’t.
In addition, there is to be a “special enrollment period” next April-September for retirees who did not enroll in Medicare when they became eligible but who wish to do so, with a waiver of the premium surcharge that normally would apply in that situation.
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