IMMINENT COLLAPSE OF THE US POSTAL SERVICE COULD PLUNGE MILLIONS INTO DEEP HOLE OF FINANCIAL RUIN
INJURED FEDERAL EMPLOYEES AND FAMILIES MAY SOON LOSE ALL WORKERS' COMPENSATION BENEFITS DUE TO USPS DEFAULT OPM MEDICAL DISABILITY RETIREMENT PAYMENTS FOR POSTAL WORKERS MAY END SOON We have all heard the news that the US Postal Service is going bankrupt as it is billions of dollars in the hole and losing millions more every month. Internet email, skyrocketing labor, contract and health costs are sending the Postal Service over the edge. And most of us shrug and say so what... I never use snailmail anyway anymore. You may want to re-think this. Quickly. In just a few weeks, the U.S. Postal Service expects to be insolvent, barring intervention by a divided Congress bogged down by partisan sniping. The quasi-independent agency, which delivers almost half the world's mail and employs more than half a million Americans, lost $3.1 billion in its most recent quarter and expects to default next month on a massive health benefits payment after reaching its $15 billion borrowing limit When the USPS goes into default, it vary likely will drag more than just your neighborhood mailman down with it. Entire financial agency empires such as social security, medicare, medicaid, health care systems, hospitals, doctors, etc. will be likely dragged down into the quagmire as well. This past week Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, the Labor Department warned that if the Postal Service fails to make a scheduled Oct. 15 payment to the Federal Employees' Compensation Act program, "there may not be enough money to pay any benefits during the last four months of FY 2012."
Even worse, DOL also stated that if FY 2012 begins with a continuing resolution rather than full-year appropriations funding, and if the USPS does not make its required payment to the FECA fund, "the Office of Workers' Compensation Programs predicted it would have to cease FECA benefits to all federal claimants due to lack of funds" as early as the end of November. USPS has already suspended its contributions to the Office of Personnel Management for the defined benefit portion of its Federal Employees Retirement System requirement in an attempt to reduce costs, and in its filing indicated that the added liquidity from suspending these payments could allow USPS to make most or all of its $1.2 billion payment. You are thinking, again, so what, what does all this mean to you as you are not a federal employee, not a postal worker, what do you care? Here is how you should care. When the Postal Service defaults, millions of expected payments for federal workers's compensation and federal medical disability retirement will no longer be going out. That is hundreds of millions of dollars that immediately disappear overnight in America, and that continues every day and every month. Millions of federal employees and their families will suddenly be without any income. That means they will no longer be able to afford mortgage and car payments. Housing and auto financial markets will be overwhelmed with defaults. Your house value crumbles, your ability to move and buy up, crumbles. The government will no longer be paying and reimbursing hospital and doctors for medical care and treatment. Those medical providers in turn will see a huge drop in their incomes as federal employees and families no longer come in for service and even if they did the government will not pay for the treatment anymore. The medical care system begins a downward slide. Your ability to obtain medical care becomes more and more difficult and insurance skyrockets in response to the lack of government reimbursements. As millions of federal employees and families no longer have income, they no longer spend at grocery stores, malls, and retail; the American retail system begins a financial slide. Stores, malls, entire outlets close due to lack of business. Are you young, fresh out of school and trying to find work? Now you have millions of more older Americans out of the street as well, all in direct competition with you for that job as they no longer can afford to be injured and out of work. For all those injured federal employees who cannot work at all, that means they are going to look elsewhere for help: e.g., the social security disability system, the Veterans disability system. Agencies that are already overwhelmed and underfunded and in danger of collapse themselves will now likely see huge increases in disability applications straining their already bogged down systems. Those non-federal claimants already in the system will likely see their claims delayed or denied in increasing numbers due to the explosion of new applications. The chain effect will then be felt upstream and Courts become bogged down and overwhelmed in their systems. Thinking that the failure and collapse of the US Postal Service is something that just happens as America modernizes and outgrows its old ways has a valid point. However the US Postal Service is made up of millions of Americans and their families. Simply closing the US Postal Service is not going to save the US billions, it more than likely will wreak havoc everywhere and cost the US hundreds of billions, if not more. And this is just inside America. Remember, the US Postal service delivers half of the world's mail. What will be the effect outside the United States on the world's economy and operations when half of the world's mail service suddenly disappears? | 
