Slow mail costs money

What happens when mail comes late? 
We found out a few years ago, when the postmaster general took away overnight first-class and periodicals mail from most of the nation. That caused problems for a lot of consumers and businesses.
Late payments affect credit scores. Medicines mailed late could mean a trip to the hospital.
Delayed payments to a business could mean delays in loan payments.
Late newspapers result in missed sales coupons and public event announcements arriving after the event.  Newspapers who rely on the mail for delivery to readers take it on the chin with disappointed readers canceling their subscriptions.
We are at another crunch point.  The U.S. Postal Service has a $57 billion deficiency on its balance sheet, most of it caused by Congress. Fixing it may require the postmaster general to close more post offices and mail-sorting plants, eliminate mail-hauling truck routes and ground the airmail.  The mail would be slowed down even further.
Congress and the postmaster general have been grappling with the tough problem of collecting enough postage for a system that must reach ever more mailing addresses in America, but with less mail — though still important mail — to pay for the service
The choices are tough. Businesses that buy postage cannot afford big increases and will simply find alternatives if the rates are jacked up too much.  Consumers cannot afford to pay more for slower mail. USPS wants to protect jobs for its workers.
There is a better choice. 
A bill is making its way through Congress that would require about 77,000 retired postal workers who draw benefits from a federal benefits health fund to use Medicare instead.
Medicare taxes were already paid for these workers.   The Medicare fund owes these retirees their benefits anyway. It is just that this group has chosen a different benefit for themselves, which they were allowed to do. Now it is time for them to follow the practice of most private sector workers and draw their earned benefits from Medicare instead.
Commercial mailers would have to accept a small postage increase to pay most of the new cost to Medicare. But the benefits to the federal budget and to USPS would be substantial. Overall, the federal deficit would be $6 billion less if the bill passed.
And the U.S. Postal Service would save about $30 billion over 10 years. The rest of its red ink would have to be erased through new efficiencies, and many steps have already been taken to find those, without creating slower mail. 
All that needs to happen is for House Speaker Paul Ryan to put the bill up for a successful vote before it is too late. 
If you are concerned about losing more mail service, particularly in rural America, the way to protect it is to contact your Representative and ask for a big push for HR 756 in September. www.house.gov will take you to a message page for your member of Congress.  
 
— Matthew Paxton IV is publisher of The News-Gazette, in Lexington, Virginia, and president of the National Newspaper Association