The Post Office and Health Care

The Post Office. Unless the mail comes late, or your expecting something in the mail, you probably don't think too much about the Post Office. In light of the recently passed Health Care Reform Bill, perhaps you should. What happens to the one is likely a reflection of what will eventually happen to the other. When we think of the word "monopoly," what comes to mind? Big oil companies? Railroads? Microsoft? If you thought of any of things you would indeed be right. All these have at one time or another been labeled as monopolies, but have you ever connected the word "monopoly" to the United States Post Office? In fact, "according to the government, no other system for delivering mail - public or private - can be established absent Congress's consent. Congress has delegated to the Postal Service the power to decide whether others may compete with it." This is why you cannot send a letter though FedEx or UPS, because it is illegal to do so. A monopoly literally means that you an unfair advantage over the competition. Having an unfair advantage over the competition, one would come to the conclusion that business would be good for the Post Office, but such is not the case. Like all things government, there is no incentive within the organization to turn a profit. Why become more efficient when saving money isn't a primary concern? There is no reward or incentive for anyone who saves the company money. Why improve your product or service when you have a monopoly over the competition? With this attitude spending often exceeds income, as it does in the case of the Post Office. And when this happens, the taxpayers bear the financial burden. The path the Post Office has taken is unsustainable, even for itself. In an attempt to reduce the Post Office's budget deficit it is anticipating the closing of hundreds of Post Office locations, the reduction of service from 6 to 5 days (No more Saturday mail), and raising the price of stamps by two cents (something we've become all too familiar with). To put it quite simply, we're paying more for less.

Despite what the Obama administration has said about the Health Care Reform Bill, health care costs will go up and health care services will go down. First the costs. AT&T has projected that it is expecting the bill will cost them $1 Billion, or $1,000,000,000. Caterpillar is projecting it will cost them $300 million. 3M projects it will cost them $90 million. Even my father's company, ConWay Transportation, projects a $30 million cost. There are only a handful of ways company's can deal with these extra costs. 1)They pass these costs to the consumer. 2)They pass these costs to the employees. AT&T is looking into dropping some benefits to retirees. In my dad's case, ConWay Transportation is raising health care premiums to employees by 11%. 3)The company's drop health care altogether which would require the company to pay a penalty (but would still save money), and it would drop the employees into government health care. Now to the services. A simple truth many fail to consider is that our health care resources are already stretched to the limit. We're adding coverage to nearly a hundred million individuals, but are not doing anything to add nurses, doctors, pharmacists, etc. If that were not enough, taxes have been placed on medical devices and other services. Medicaid and Medicare are already paying so much less than other insurance carriers for services that many doctors are choosing to not accept it anymore. This means more patients for less doctors in an already overloaded system.

Nothing the government does is efficient in any way. Anyone who has served in the military can attest to that. The government run Post Office has a monopoly on their services and they can't even break even, but then again when was the last time any government program has come at or under budget? It's never happened! Not once! What is it that leads us to believe that Health Care will be the first? The implementation of the bill is already behind schedule, and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has already determined the bill will cost $150 Billion more than what was projected. Just as the Post Office has proven that to stay viable it must raise prices and reduce services, so too will the Health Care Bill prove to raise our costs and reduce our services.


Sources:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/03/02/postal-service-lose-billion-official-says/
Wikipedia.org