SPRINGFIELD — About half the annual $100 million the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services expects to save by switching health insurance plans for state employees and retirees would come from the Champaign-Urbana and Springfield areas, a Health Alliance Medical Plans executive said today.

"Almost $30 million of the savings were coming from the Springfield market and $20 million were coming from the Champaign area," said Health Alliance CEO Jeff Ingrum.

Health Alliance held a press conference for noon today in Springfield to announce the findings of an actuary the company hired to analyze the state agency's savings projections.

Health Alliance — one of five managed care companies currently covering state employees — covers about 100,000 state members in an HMO plan, and its members would have to change health plans because its bid was rejected for the new benefits period in favor of Blue Cross and Blue Shield HMOs and Open Access Plans operated by PersonalCare and HealthLink.

Health Alliance and the other ousted HMO, Humana, have filed protests that are pending before the Executive Ethics Commission. Health Alliance obtained information used in its analysis from the Department of Healthcare and Family Services in connection with the protest, Ingrum said.

Milliman, the actuary firm hired by Health Alliance, was asked by the company to estimate the network discounts of other insurance carriers that were implied by the savings estimate shown in the state agency' May 11 letter to Health Alliance.

Ingrum said the state agency claimed savings would come from Health Alliance's core markets where the insurer gets its deepest discounts from medical providers, and the Milliman analysis showed other carriers would have to top those discounts.

However, he said, Health Alliance never provided the information that would have been needed by the state to calculate those savings, he said.

"We never provided them with the detailed information to be making those judgments, and without that data they're making wild assumptions," he said.

Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services spokeswoman Stacey Solano said her department hasn't been able to discuss insurance changes while the protests remain unsettled,  but realizes it's natural for people to be concerned  about potential changes in their health coverage.

“While we await the EEC’s ruling on the group health procurement, we have had to be very conservative in what we can tell the public, legislators and the press so as not to violate the strict ethics rules of the process and invalidate the procurement. These rules were set in place by the legislature when it passed the procurement legislation last year, and we must abide by them,” she said.

“We believe that once the EEC rules, and we are able to comment and explain the decisions, it will put to rest many of the fears and anxieties currently being fed by misinformation. We are absolutely confident not only in the integrity of the procurement process, but in the decision that was made based on the evaluation of the bids, and in any resulting cost savings. We believe that the vendors selected will offer quality health care for employees, retirees, and dependents while also reaping significant savings to the state of Illinois.”