Ahead Of The Senate’s ACA Tax Credit Vote, Durbin Joins Spotlight Forum Highlighting The Importance Of The ACA
During his remarks, Durbin highlighted how the ACA addressed addiction treatment and mental health services
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) today participated in a spotlight forum hosted by U.S. Senators Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Mark Warner (D-VA) focused on the need to extend the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) enhanced premium tax credits ahead of the Senate’s vote tomorrow on the Democratic proposal for a clean three-year extension of the ACA tax credits. These tax credits have put health care within reach for Americans by lowering health insurance premiums for more than 20 million Americans nationwide, including upwards of 500,000 Illinoisans.
If Republicans vote against extending these enhanced premium tax credits, more than four million Americans are expected to lose their health care coverage next year, including more than 160,000 people in Illinois. Tens of millions of others will see their monthly premiums double or even triple.
Durbin began his remarks by reflecting on his own family’s experience of being uninsured when his newborn daughter was in need of critical care.
“Many members are motivated and inspired by their own personal experiences. This is one for me. I was a student at Georgetown Law School when I got married… and God sent us a baby. She was a beautiful little girl with a serious medical condition, and I had no health insurance… What was next was to go to the old Children’s Hospital here in Washington and to sit in the charity ward for people who couldn’t afford to pay and didn’t have any insurance… I’ll never forget that moment and that has inspired me to be part of this conversation [on health care] for a long time,” said Durbin.
Durbin then commented on the ACA including provisions to address mental health and addiction.
“It made so much sense we included it and thank God we did. As we faced the opioid crisis, many lives [were] saved by the fact there was paid-for counseling available through the ACA,” said Durbin.
He asked Susan Stearns, Executive Director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) New Hampshire, about the importance of including addiction treatment and mental health treatment in the ACA.
“Tell me a little about your experience with your family with this [in regard to the ACA including provisions to address addiction and mental health resources],” Durbin asked.
Ms. Stearns replied that her father lived with an alcohol use disorder. She continued to say, “without the ACA including Medicaid expansion and subsidies for the marketplace plan, we would not have turned the tide [on the opioid epidemic] as we seemingly have at this point. Lives are literally being saved.” She continued to say that we will backslide if we allow these ACA tax credits to expire.
During his remarks, Durbin emphasized that we can work in a bipartisan way to address the Republicans’ concerns with the ACA, but we must immediately address the tax credits—as millions of people will see their premiums skyrocket come January 1.
Video of Durbin’s remarks is available here.
Audio of Durbin’s remarks is available here.
To combat the rising cost of health care, congressional Democrats implemented ACA enhanced premium tax credits through the American Rescue Plan in 2021 and extended them in the Inflation Reduction Act through the end of 2025. As a result of these enhanced premium tax credits, the number of Americans covered on the ACA’s marketplace increased from 11 million in 2020 to 24 million this year. Despite millions of Americans relying on these tax credits, congressional Republicans have refused to act to extend them, consequently threatening health care coverage for Americans that cannot otherwise afford to pay for their premiums. This is in addition to the nearly $1 trillion in cuts congressional Republicans made to Medicaid in the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which was passed at the direction of President Trump in order to fund tax breaks for billionaires
Congressional Democrats have been pushing to make quality health care more accessible for millions of Americans for more than 15 years. The ACA, championed by Democrats, changed the landscape of health care in the U.S. by expanding coverage options. Prior to the passage of the legislation in 2010, insurance companies routinely denied patients coverage if they had pre-existing conditions, preventing millions of Americans from securing an affordable health care plan.
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