AVONDALE (WBBM Newsradio) -- Illinois' senior U.S. Senator says the current status of efforts to restore health insurance tax credits proves that a controversial vote he took last year was the right one.
Democrat Dick Durbin voted with Republicans in the Senate last fall to end the nation's longest-ever government shutdown, in exchange for an agreement to vote on extending tax credits for millions of people who buy insurance on the Affordable Care Act exchanges.
Those credits expired at the end of 2025.
He got a lot of heat for that vote ... but with the House approving a measure to extend those credits for three years, he told reporters Friday he's still convinced it was the right vote.
"Look where we are today," Durbin said during an appearance at Concordia Place, 3300 N. Whipple Ave. "We have an honest, bipartisan debate over extending the ACA benefits. That was not the case during the shutdown."
But the Senate still has to vote, and Durbin admitted that's going to take work.
"We know that we have to do something different in the Senate to get to 60 votes together to pass any alternative that might be considered by the House," he said. "There are about 12 of us, I'd say, involved, trying to put together that measure."