The USPS needs to pre-fund their medical promises for retirees, but can't cancel those benefits without an act of congress... this is actually one of the unique

The USPS needs to pre-fund their medical promises for retirees, but can't cancel those benefits without an act of congress... this is actually one of the unique bits. The private sector can just cancel those medical benefits at any time. Really those benefits should be shifted to Medicare and the burden should be taken off of the USPS. Also, private companies need to pre-fund these retirement benefits too (with fewer general restrictions so they can change if they're having financial issues) but no other government agency other than the USPS has to. The timing of the pre-funding legislation was also a little problematic because they had to rapidly catch up... this hamstringed their capital for about a decade so they put a lot of modernization initiatives on hold. Then toss in a pandemic and the fact we're stuck with a sycophantic postmaster general and you've got a screwed postal system.