It’s a long weekend for federal employees.  Medicare’s open enrollment period for Medicare Advantage and Part D plans starts on Saturday and runs through December 7. Hopefully before then we’ll know what’s up with Medicare cost sharing for 2017.

The Federal Benefits Open Season starts on November 14 and runs through December 12. By now plans typically have posted 2017 benefits info on their websites.  In the next week or two, OPM will release the handy benefits administration letter on significant FEHBP and FEDVIP changes for 2017. The FEHBlog will be sure to link to it once it’s posted.

The FEHBlog has been expecting Congress to consider the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s bipartisan Postal reform bill in the lame duck session following the national election on November 8.  A National Association of Postal Supervisors legislative representative opines in the Postal Times that this viewpoint is a “long shot”. The FEHBlog is not suprised to possibly have made an incorrect educated guess. He is suprised that nearly two months after the House committee cleared the bill, the Congressional Budget Office has not scored it.  That was the next step according to Committee leadership.