The state’s health insurance industry lobby, which has lost several high-profile health plan members in the last year, now finds itself looking for a new top executive.
Elena Butkus, 39, executive director of the Illinois Association of Health Plans, confirmed she will join the Illinois Hospital Association as vice president of finance effective Dec. 28. Her replacement has not been named.
Butkus will be in charge of some key policy issues for the hospital group’s more than 200 members, such as managed care and billing the uninsured.
Hospitals across the country have been under fire for alleged billing practices that critics say have resulted in overcharging patients who do not have insurance.
“IHA offered an opportunity that I couldn’t pass up,” said Butkus, who has been with the health plan group since 1996, the last three years as its top executive. “I am really excited because I have got a great group of issues. I am going back to my roots, which is in policy.”
Butkus’ departure is the latest blow to the association. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois, the state’s largest health insurer, Humana Inc. and Cigna Corp. are no longer part of the association. In the last year, all three decided to either lobby on their own or work through national groups. Aetna Inc. confirmed its pending departure from the group, but wouldn’t say why.
Despite the exodus of members, the companies remaining believe the association will still be a force in advocating for the health insurance industry in Illinois. It retains several large health plans as members, including UnitedHealth Group Inc. and Wellpoint Health Networks Inc.
“We have enough critical mass to accomplish what we need to accomplish,” said William Moeller, who is the health plan group’s board chairman and is chief executive of UnitedHealth’s United Healthcare of Illinois Inc. subsidiary.
Moeller said the focus of the group is also changing, eliminating certain “ancillary” activities such as its annual spring symposium that included trade exhibits and guest speakers.
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“We are going to focus more on legislative agenda,” Moeller said.
To bolster its lobbying in Springfield, the association recently hired some Democratic lobbyists, given that Democrats control the governor’s mansion and both houses of the Illinois legislature.
The association hired, on contract, Victor Reyes, a former senior aide to Mayor Richard Daley, as well as William Filan and Mike Noonan, former aides to House Speaker Michael Madigan.
In the next legislative session, Moeller said, a major focus of the association will be finance, tax and solvency issues of state-regulated health plans.