The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is asking the public whether the Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) Program — and its companion, the Postal Service Health Benefits (PSHB) Program — should offer more, fewer, or different plan options than they do today.
This is not a proposed rule, and nothing changes as a result of this notice alone. However, unlike the two previous rule changes OPM highlights in the notice, which expanded carriers’ flexibility to offer plan options, this RFI explicitly puts more, fewer, or different options on the table. It is worth understanding what OPM is actually asking before the comment window closes.
The request for information (RFI), titled “Federal Employees Health Benefits Program: Optimizing FEHB Plan Offerings,” publishes in the September 15, 2026 Federal Register and opens a formal comment period.
Why OPM Is Asking Now
The RFI ties directly to OPM’s FY 2026–2027 Annual Performance Plan, which sets a strategic objective to “establish and apply evidence-based criteria to assess the appropriate number and distribution of health plan options available to enrollees.” In plain terms, OPM is examining whether the number and types of plans on the menu could be one lever for managing premium growth.
The timing follows two consecutive years of steep premium increases — the average total FEHB premium rose 12.3% for 2026, after a 13.5% increase for 2025. Enrollees tracking their own plan’s rate history can check the FEHB Premium Lookup tool for year-over-year comparisons by carrier and plan (2027 plan year rates will likely be announced in October).
How FEHB Plan Options Are Structured Today
Under current regulations (5 CFR 890.201(b)(3)(i)), a health benefits plan may offer no more than three options, or two options plus a high-deductible health plan (HDHP). For Plan Year 2026, there are 132 plan options from 47 carriers in FEHB and 75 plan options from 17 carriers in PSHB.
OPM points to two previous rule changes involving this limit, and both expanded carriers’ flexibility to offer options. A 2010 rule change let employee organization plans and health maintenance organizations offer three full options without requiring one to be an HDHP. A 2018 rule extended that same flexibility to the Service Benefit Plan and Indemnity Benefit Plan. This RFI takes a broader approach: OPM is explicitly asking about the potential effects of offering more, fewer, or different options.
Two Directions This Could Go
OPM’s questions put a basic trade-off on the table: whether changing the number or types of choices could help control costs without making the program less useful to enrollees.
- Fewer or more standardized options could make plan comparison simpler and potentially concentrate enrollment, but could also leave employees and retirees with fewer ways to match coverage to their particular health care needs.
- More or different options could give enrollees additional ways to trade premiums against deductibles and other cost sharing. OPM specifically asks whether a wider variety of options would lead enrollees toward lower-premium plans, whether additional HDHPs could affect costs, and, in the RFI’s own words, “would offering more health plan options provide relief for existing plans facing detrimental adverse selection?”
OPM is also raising a potentially more consequential question: whether there should be an upper limit on what a plan may charge in premiums and, if a plan exceeds that limit and cannot reduce its premiums, whether that plan offering should have to be eliminated.
OPM’s own data underscores why these questions matter. Its 2023 Federal Employee Benefits Survey found 90% of respondents considered FEHB Program availability important, and 94% felt it met their needs — but only 66% called it an “excellent or good value.” That gap between availability and value is really what this RFI is trying to close.
What This RFI Is — and Isn’t
An RFI is a fact-finding step, not a rule change. This notice itself does not change any FEHB or PSHB plan options, premiums, benefits, or enrollment rules. OPM says the information it gathers will help determine whether modifications to current regulations should be pursued through future notice-and-comment rulemaking. Enrollees do not need to take any action related to this notice to keep their current coverage.
How to Submit a Comment
Once published, the notice will be available at federalregister.gov, where a “Submit a Formal Comment” button takes readers directly to the correct comment form on regulations.gov. The comment period runs 60 days from publication.