Durbin Receives Distinguished Service Award From Illinois Health And Hospital Association

Durbin Receives Distinguished Service Award From Illinois Health And Hospital Association

Durbin receives award in honor of his decades of supporting Illinois hospitals and working to expand Americans' access to health care

CHICAGO - U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) today was presented with the Distinguished Service Award by the Illinois Health and Hospital Association (IHA) for his longstanding efforts to support hospitals and expand access to health care. Durbin spoke before receiving the award, highlighting his efforts to protect rural hospitals, bolster the health care workforce, and reinstate Medicaid funding after congressional Republicans slashed $1 trillion from the program. Durbin also offered his gratitude to the IHA and hospital leaders who worked with him to launch the Chicago HEAL Initiative, a collaboration between hospitals and community partners to address the root causes of gun violence through economic, health, and community projects in Chicago neighborhoods with the highest rates of violence, poverty, and health disparities.

"Instead of building on the success of the Chicago HEAL Initiative and improving our nation's health care system, Republicans in Washington have enacted some of the most drastic cuts to Americans' health coverage by slashing funding for the ACA and Medicaid. Not only are Illinoisans losing their coverage, but hospitals are being forced to navigate mountains of new administrative red tape created by this Administration just to provide care for their patients," Durbin said. "But IHA and our hospital leaders are doing all they can to continue to provide quality service to Illinoisans. And it's been an honor to be their partner in that effort."

Photos of Durbin receiving the award can be found here.

Congressional Republicans' One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), which passed last year, cut $1 trillion from Medicaid and $300 billion from Affordable Care Act coverage over the next decade in order to fund tax cuts for billionaires. Following passage of OBBBA, Durbin sent a letter to every hospital in Illinois to survey the projected impact on hospitals. Across the 129 responses Durbin received, hospitals across Illinois, especially those in rural areas, detailed fears about pending cuts to services and staff while emergency room wait times increase.

In response to rural hospitals' concerns about potential cuts or forced closures, Durbin has advanced his bipartisan Rural Hospital Closure Relief Act. The legislation would update Medicare's "Critical Access Hospital" (CAH) designation so more rural hospitals can qualify for this financial lifeline and continue to serve their communities with quality, affordable health care services.

To address the health care workforce shortage, Durbin has worked across the aisle to introduce legislation that would bring more health care professionals to rural areas, support health care educators, and build up the health care workforce. In March, Durbin reintroduced the bipartisan Rural America Health Corps Act, legislation that would incentivize more health professionals to serve and plant roots in rural communities by creating a new program under the Health Resources and Services Administration's (HRSA) National Health Service Corps (NHSC) to test whether an increased loan repayment amount would improve the retention of health providers in rural areas.

In January, Durbin reintroduced the bipartisan Nurse Faculty Shortage Reduction Act to address the critical nursing faculty shortage by creating a pilot grant program to help nursing schools increase wages for nurse educators. In 2025, Durbin introduced the bipartisan Healthcare Workforce Resilience Act, which would allow for the recapture of 25,000 unused immigrant visas for nurses and 15,000 unused immigrant visas for physicians that Congress has previously authorized-providing a desperately needed boost to our health care system in rural and urban areas.

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