Allison Larkin

Because I don’t want to lose my life due to inaccessible health care

Many of us would not survive another Trump presidency. I don’t think I would. I’ve had asthma since childhood and experienced escalating allergic reactions to food that finally, in my mid-forties, resulted in a diagnosis of mast cell activation syndrome. These diagnoses allow me an improved quality of life through access to testing, care, and medications that protect my ability to eat and breathe. However, they are documented preexisting conditions.

The Affordable Care Act provides me the freedom to live my life to my fullest possible potential by mandating equal health insurance coverage for preexisting conditions like mine. Under Trump, Project 2025 would dismantle ACA’s nondiscrimination clause, allowing health insurance companies to refuse patients, drop them, or charge more for coverage based on

classifications like gender and preexisting conditions. Without ACA protections, I will be unable to maintain affordable insurance coverage. Without health care access, my conditions are unmanageable.

Most likely, I’m a stranger on the internet, and you may not care about my well-being. If you don’t yet have a disabling condition, you may feel that ACA’s benefits don’t apply to you. But almost half of Americans have a chronic health issue, so I’m certain you care about someone who has had cancer or has a diagnosis of a condition such as diabetes, heart disease, epilepsy, asthma, lupus, sleep apnea, high cholesterol, hypertension, depression, or other mental health conditions. If you were diagnosed with a chronic health condition while under ACA protections, you may not realize you have a preexisting condition, because it hasn’t yet created a coverage issue. You also may not be aware that under Project 2025, being a woman of child-bearing age could be treated as a preexisting condition, allowing insurance companies to hike prices based on gender, as they were allowed to before ACA.

Additionally, Project 2025 dismisses ACA’s ten essential health benefits, including emergency services, maternity care, mental health coverage, and prescription medications. Project 2025 promises to gut Medicaid and Medicare and could place lifetime coverage caps on individuals, meaning patients would lose coverage for requiring “too much” care, essentially acting as a ticking death warrant to disabled, chronically ill, and elderly Americans.

Despite Trump’s attempts to downplay connections to Project 2025, we know his intentions. As president, Trump tried to kill the Affordable Care Act, but John McCain’s vote saved ACA. Senator McCain is not here to intervene again. And we know that under Trump’s rule, few Republicans had the courage to stand up for the health of the American people.

Please don’t risk my life and the lives of your loved ones by voting for a candidate who has a “concept of a plan” for health care and a demonstrated history of disregard for the basic health care needs of working and middle-class Americans.

Kamala Harris will uphold ACA protections while making health care even more accessible to Americans through expanded, permanent tax credits and negotiating lower prescription drug costs. I am voting for Kamala Harris because I don’t want to lose my life or lose anyone I love due to inadequate or inaccessible health care. I hope you’ll join me in voting to protect Americans with preexisting conditions.

Allison Larkin is the author of The People We Keep and Home of the American Circus.