UPDATED at 5:05 p.m.

Health Alliance Medical Plans could be available to state employees and retirees as a temporary health insurance option as early as Wednesday, the company says.

“We are all working very quickly,” Health Alliance spokeswoman Jane Hayes said Tuesday, after a legislative panel agreed to allow the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services to negotiate new 90-day contracts with the health insurers currently serving state group plan members.

More than 400,000 state employees, dependents and retirees should be able to continue their existing health care coverage for at least 90 more days, the director of the Department of Healthcare and Family Services said Tuesday.

And the state hopes to negotiate 90-day, emergency contracts with a number of providers, including Urbana-based Health Alliance, within the next three days, said DHS Director Julie Hamos.

“Our goal will be to do that because we want to get this in place and maintain continuity of care,” said Hamos. “I’m sure that right now notices are going out to people who are anxiously awaiting the actions of today.”

Hamos made her remarks following a nearly 3-hour-long meeting of the Legislature’s Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability, which was called after a Sangamon County judge’s ruling last week threatened to leave thousands of state employees and others without health insurance coverage.

“I think after Friday’s court ruling there was a lot of confusion,” Hamos said. “What I think was most distressing to public employees in this entire last two months period is to think that they had very few options, and it was going to be either a PPO or Blue cross, which was only in 38 counties. The court’s ruling had that effect.”

Now, said Hamos, “I  think that they can get the assurance that there will be lots of different options for health care plans, although it’s only for 90 days at this point.”

The emergency contracts, which Hamos said would be negotiated with both providers from the current state fiscal year and the one beginning July 1, could be entered into and approved by the state ethics office in the next few days.

“I think he’s working very closely with us. He’s standing right there. We weren’t necessarily going to let people out of this room,” she joked.

The negotiations were expected to begin Tuesday afternoon, she said.

State employees, dependents and retirees still must choose a health insurance provider by Friday, according to Janice Bonneville, director of benefits for the state Department of Central Management Services. But they will be able to amend that choice, either by submitting a form by fax, by mail or in person by June 24, she said.

“If they’ve made a decision and they want to change it, they need to fill out a new form and sign it,” she saidf. “What I’ve basically been telling members is that if you’ve made a decision and something has happened to make you change that decision, assuming you’ve saved copies of what you’ve sent, take another copy, mark through it. Do the new form, staple it to it and write on it that this new form supersedes the form I sent on this date. And put it back in the mail.

“We’re going to get it. And we can react to that. What I can’t do is tell members that you can wait until the 24th or the 30th. We have to have time to process things."