Speculation Abounds on Employee Issues

With the election of Barack Obama as President and strengthened Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate starting in January, employee organizations are trying to assess what the changes might hold for the federal workforce. During the campaign, Obama spoke of creating health insurance coverage for uninsured persons similar to what he and other members of Congress receive, meaning the FEHB. However, officials who have been tracking this issue say there are few details regarding what that might mean–creating a parallel program with the same providers, or opening the doors of the program to other persons and creating a separate premium pool, or some other option. Obama also expressed skepticism about pay for performance systems such as DoD’s national security personnel system and expressed his belief that more staff is needed in programs that are suffering from backlogs, such as Social Security disability claims processing. Meanwhile, chances might improve for several benefits initiatives pushed mainly by congressional Democrats, including the granting of some paid parental leave time, benefit improvements in FEHB, and crediting of unused sick leave time toward FERS retirement benefits.