October 13, 2017

To the Honorable Members of The Illinois Senate,

100th General Assembly:

Today I veto Senate Bill 1446 from the 100th General Assembly, which amends the Illinois Procurement Code to force the Department of Healthcare and Family Services to repeat its request for proposals (“RFP”) for purchase of care contracts with managed care organizations. Enactment of this legislation would needlessly cost taxpayers millions of dollars.

The Department conducted the RFP for statewide managed care contracts over a five-month period in a competitive, transparent process. The RFP was consistent with State procurement law and historical practice. Forcing re-procurement of the RFP under this legislation would prevent nearly one billion dollars in savings and block stronger accountability and performance management in the Illinois Medicaid Program.

The transformation of health and human services to help our most vulnerable citizens has been one of the primary goals of this Administration. In the beginning of this year, the Department began a process to help make the goals of the transformation a reality by improving health outcomes for Medicaid clients while slowing the growth of health care costs and putting the State of Illinois on a more sustainable financial trajectory. The result – after months of rigorous work and evaluation by experienced staff from several different State agencies – is a solution that serves all the people of Illinois.

The Department took steps to ensure the integrity of the procurement throughout the entire process.  The process of evaluating managed care providers mirrored traditional procurements, including key components such as soundness of evaluations, transparent communications, and the use of objective measures. In addition, plans were chosen through competitive statewide bidding for the first time, using strict rules to ensure impartiality.

The Department has acted in accordance with the law to deliver improved health care to our most vulnerable citizens and provide value for our taxpayers. We should be commending the Department for its work in service of all Illinoisans. Instead, this bill would needlessly force the Department to repeat a task that has already been successfully completed, to the detriment of our vulnerable citizens and the State’s taxpayers.

Therefore, pursuant to Section 9(b) of Article IV of the Illinois Constitution of 1970, I hereby return Senate Bill 1446, entitled “AN ACT concerning State government,” with the foregoing objections, vetoed in its entirety.

Sincerely,

Bruce Rauner

GOVERNOR