07.28.17

Durbin: Last Night Was A Victory For Illinois

WASHINGTON—U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) released the following statement: 

Last night’s defeat of the Republican plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act was a victory for our state. One million Illinoisans would have lost their health insurance under the GOP’s various plans. Our state’s outstanding hospitals would have lost between 60,000 and 95,000 good paying professional jobs.

More than three million Illinoisans—twenty percent of people in our state—depend on the Medicaid program for health coverage, including 1.5 million children, more than 300,000 seniors and people with disabilities, and 650,000 who gained Medicaid coverage thanks to the Affordable Care Act. The Republican health care repeal bills would have absolutely decimated the Medicaid program and endangered this coverage for Illinoisans. Two-thirds of nursing home residents who count on Medicaid would have faced big funding cuts. And nationwide, eleven million disabled individuals with Medicaid would have lost the only health insurance they can count on.

Under these various repeal bills, every family with health insurance would have seen the reliability of that insurance crumble – with basic protections, like those for people with pre-existing conditions, eliminated. And those between the ages of 50 and 64 would have seen their premium costs rise sharply.

And all of this was driven by a Republican plan to give the wealthiest few, as well as pharmaceutical and insurance companies, a tax break of more than $600 billion. Last night the special interests lost on the floor of the Senate. Thanks to the patients, nurses, doctors, hospitals and ordinary citizens who stood up and fought back. Our Illinois families prevailed.