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Jewish World Review
April 20, 2010
/ 6 Iyar 5770
As government expands, beware the post-office example
By
Byron York
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Back when Barack Obama was pushing for a public option in the new national healthcare system, he raised eyebrows with an out-of-nowhere remark about the U.S. Postal Service.
It happened last August at a town hall in Colorado. Obama claimed Americans shouldn't be afraid of a government insurance company the public option competing against private insurers, because even though the government has vastly more resources than any individual company, "You've got a lot of private companies who do very well competing against the government UPS and FedEx are doing a lot better than the post office."
Obama apparently liked the point, because he made it again at another town hall around the same time. "Private insurers should be able to compete," he said Aug. 11 in New Hampshire. "They do it all the time. I mean, if you think about it, UPS and FedEx are doing just fine, right? It's the post office that's always having problems."
It was a jarring moment. Here, Obama was trying to promote a huge expansion of government involvement in the health system, and he pointed to a sprawling, unresponsive and insanely expensive government bureaucracy. (It's also one that nearly every American knows from firsthand experience.) Not exactly the best case for government effectiveness.
Obama's words are coming back now, with news that the U.S. Postal Service is in even more of a mess than we thought. Without serious reform, it's set to lose $7 billion this year and $238 billion over the next 10 years, and a new report from the Government Accountability Office says the post office's business model is "not viable" given current business conditions. The report makes the post office sound like a government version of General Motors, if General Motors itself weren't already a government version of General Motors.
Demand for snail mail has been falling in recent years the GAO notes that first-class mail volume has declined 19 percent since its peak in 2001 and though the post office has cut some staff, it hasn't done nearly enough to keep up. The post office is supposed to pay for itself, but in recent years has been covering its losses by borrowing from the Treasury. But now, GAO notes, the post office "is nearing its $15 billion borrowing limit with the U.S. Treasury and has unfunded pension and retiree health obligations and other liabilities of about $90 billion."
Labor costs are killing the post office. Wages and benefits make up 80 percent of its expenses. About 85 percent of its employees are covered by union contracts, and many receive benefits beyond those of other federal workers. Union agreements force the post office to maintain more full-time employees than it needs; deny managers flexibility in assigning tasks, like having a retail clerk deliver mail; forbid the post office from outsourcing any city delivery routes; give about 500,000 employees total protection from layoffs; and "require (the post office) to pay a more generous share of employees' health and life-insurance premiums than most other agencies," according to GAO.
The post office operates under restrictions that do not burden private businesses. It has a legal monopoly on some types of letter mail, but it's also required by law to deliver mail to every address in the United States. Over the years, Congress has authorized the construction of too many post offices and the hiring of too many postal employees, and those are hard numbers to bring down. Altogether, it is a shining example of what happens when the government tries to operate like a business, only not really.
If it stands, the new healthcare law will establish government offices and agencies to create and run healthcare exchanges, to closely regulate insurance companies, to establish standards of care, to determine what are appropriate levels of coverage, to ensure compliance with the law it goes on and on. It is, well, a huge expansion of government involvement in the health system. And there is little doubt that many of its backers in Congress want to expand it further in the coming years. Some envision a day when the government, which already runs Medicare and Medicaid, runs health care entirely.
What could go wrong? It turns out Barack Obama has already told us: Just look at the post office.
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Comment on Byron York's column by clicking here.
Previously:
04/19/10Who wins in 2010? Good luck reading tea leaves
04/12/10 GOP Obamacare strategy: Try repeal, then cut
04/05/10 Obamacare was mainly aimed at redistributing wealth
03/30/10 Message to Dems: People still don't like Obamacare
03/23/10 The coming consequences of Obamacare
03/16/10 Marco Rubio and the Republicans who love him
03/15/10 GOP hopes town halls take health care off table
03/08/10 Dems turn risky health vote into manhood contest
03/01/10 Why Obama defies the public on health care
02/22/10 South Carolina mulls 2012: Romney? Palin? Huck?
02/16/10 GOP winning war over Miranda rights for terrorists
02/09/10 Who are the 300 terrorists held in U.S. prisons?
02/02/10 Is Obama dissatisfied with being president?
01/19/10 The Republican dilemma: Good Michael or Bad Michael?
01/12/10 Now the lawmakers are figuring out what they didn't know
01/05/10 GOP deserves blame for Democratic excesses
12/29/09 Dems' dreams of a blue West begin to turn red
12/22/09 Why Dems push health care, even if it kills them
11/30/09 Dems' kamikaze mission: Health care by New Year's
11/23/09 Why it's a mistake to bring Gitmo prisoners here
11/16/09 Dems' slick fix: $210 billion of fiscal restraint
11/10/09 Obama can't be community organizer for the world
11/02/09 At key moment, Obama leaves health post unfilled
10/26/09 Fierce urgency' for jobs, not health care
10/12/09 Facts hurt Jennings in youth sex controversy
10/05/09 Amid terror threat, Dems chip away at Patriot Act
09/27/09 In Afghanistan, let U.S. troops be warriors
09/21/09 Under fire, Democrats abandon ACORN in drove
09/14/09 Dems stifle Republican health care plans
09/08/09 For Dems, a serious Charlie Rangel problem
09/07/09 Obama's speech: Wrong setting for a sales job
09/01/09 What happened to the antiwar movement?
08/24/09 Why Dems may jam through health care plan
08/17/09 GOP thinks the unthinkable: Victory in 2010
08/10/09 The empty words of a journalist turned flack
08/03/09 Probe finds new clues in AmeriCorps IG scandal
07/27/09 Obamacare haunted by unkept promises of stimulus
07/20/09 Why the GOP failed the Sotomayor test
07/13/09 What the GOPers will ask Sotomayor
06/29/09 Serious questions remain for Mark Sanford
06/22/09 How GOPers can crack the AmeriCorps scandal
06/16/09 Worried about Sotomayor? Consider Andre Davis
06/08/09 Can Mitch Daniels save the GOP?
06/01/09 When the Dems derailed a Latino nominee
05/26/09 Why the GOP will defeat Obama on healthcare
05/19/09 Rosy report can't hide stimulus problems
05/12/09 The Reagan legacy is the man himself
05/05/09 Sen. Specter, meet your new friends
04/27/09 Ted Olson: ‘Torture’ probes will never end
04/20/09 Who's Laughing at the Axis of Evil today?
04/14/09 Congress needs Google to track stimulus money
04/06/09 Beyond AIG: A bill to let Big Government set your salary
03/30/09 On Spending and the Deficit, McCain Was Right
03/24/09 It's Obama's crisis now
03/17/09: Geithner-Obama economics: A joke that's not funny
© 2009, NEA
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