I know I wasn’t the only the only person in the United States who was taken aback by the House’s decision to move on with the repeal the Affordable Care Act. People took off to social media to voice their opinions on the situation.

The scariest part of their plan is that people with pre-existing conditions (medical conditions that the person lives with before being put on the insurance plan) may not be able to get their condition covered on their plan. They are going to get charged even more than their healthier counterparts for having these medical problems. I do understand that most of the repeals don’t affect me yet. I’m not on Obamacare or Medicaid; I still am a part of my family’s healthcare and I am on whatever insurance plan my parents are on. However, this will change as a start to move out into the bigger world and start to live on my own and deal with my asthma head on.

I was diagnosed with severe asthma when I was around three-years-old. I remember having to be brought into the doctor in the middle of night countless times when I couldn’t stop coughing. I remember very clearly having an attack in the middle of my first-grade art class and having to be brought home because the dust in the room irritated my lungs too much. As I got older, I remember having to monitor my lungs surreptitiously when I was dancing away at dance rehearsal. I remember having to carefully plan my days so I wouldn’t come across any of my asthma triggers; I couldn’t go to my friend’s house after school because her cat made my allergies flare, I couldn’t go for a run in the morning because the cold air and exercise together would make my lungs explode, and I most certainly couldn’t let myself get into too stressful of a situation. I have been dealing with this beast of a disease for almost 17 years now, so I hardly realize anymore that my condition does exist, and that some of my normal everyday behaviors can be seen as a little taxing by others. After recent news, I have realized that having my inhaler in my hand ready for battle is something I that I do take for granted every day.

Without insurance, the cost of one albuterol inhaler (the most common way to treat surprise asthma attacks) is almost $100, and this inhaler would only last someone with easily triggered asthma like mine around two months. In one year, someone like me would be paying almost $1,200 for asthma medication if their insurance didn’t cover it. It may not be clear how important a little canister of drugs is to an asthmatic if you are not one, but my inhaler has saved my life on more than one occasion. According to the Trump Administration’s new repeals to Obamacare, someone like me wouldn’t be able to get their expensive medicine covered by their insurance because they have had this condition all of his or her life.

What if I wasn’t able to get the crucial medicine I need for my condition?

I wouldn’t have been able to enjoy any of life thus far. I wouldn’t have been able to explore my passion for dance, take walks in particularly woodsy areas, or even pet animals if I didn’t have my trusty rescue inhaler by my side. I wouldn’t have been able to enjoy the woodsy smell of a good campfire, as the smoke would make my lungs swell up. I wouldn’t be able to share a good laugh with my friends without them worrying about having to take me to the hospital. I really wouldn’t have been able to enjoy life at all if couldn’t properly treat my asthma.

Sure I could try to tell myself that my asthma is just my “mind playing games with me” and that I “just need to breathe.” Ignoring the problems totally makes it go away right? I was told this several times by various individuals that I just had to ignore my apparent medical condition and it would magically go away without me having to grab my inhaler. Obviously, that is not going to work every single day of my life when I am going to have trouble breathing and can’t get the medication I need to survive.

A medical condition is still a medical condition no matter if it’s developed before or after you sign on to your insurance plan. People don’t develop these pre-existing conditions on a whim. I didn’t decide one day as a young child that I wanted to have breathing problems for the rest of my life and to have to deal with countless visits to the doctor, the never-ending medicine, and the constant worry that my lungs could give out at any second. Who would want to bring that upon themselves?

Do you remember that young girl in that one Johnson and Johnson commercial raising awareness for pediatrics, and the millions of children who have been subjected to the same life? Those young cancer patients who are subjected to chemotherapy and other treatments before they even enter the adult world did not choose to spend the time that they are supposed to be riding bikes, coloring pictures, and enjoying the wonders of childhood laying in a hospital bed and being subjected to many tests and treatments.

Did you know that every 98 seconds, an American is sexually assaulted? Did you know that 1 in 4 women and 1 in 7 men are physically and emotionally abused by their significant others each year? Sexual assault and domestic violence survivors don’t choose to have that traumatizing event scar their hearts forever and have to seek treatment for the emotional damage that has been done upon them.

Women don’t choose to be women—it’s all genetics and mainly based on whether the egg inherits its father’s X or Y chromosome. They don’t choose to have to take care of their reproductive health to maintain the United States population. Visits to the gynecologist are costly, but necessary for every woman, and aren’t exactly something women want to subject themselves to in the first place. The treatment for these conditions in necessary, and can be quite costly when not covered on an insurance plan. These American citizens did not choose to have these conditions, so they should not be forced to pay more to get necessary treatment.

In Trump’s speech about the repeal of Obamacare,all he talks about is how premiums and deductibles are going to go down, and how great of a plan it is going to be.This may be great for those with clean bills of health who rely on their insurance purely for accidental injuries, like broken legs. They are still covered well under this plan. However, are these lower priced payment options really that beneficial for those who are going to have to be doubling or even tripling their medical bills to pay for the medicine they need to survive? Is it fair to deny someone of their needs just because they can't pay the normal outrageous prices? No one just knows that they are going to develop these conditions. There is no possible way I could’ve decided as a 2-year-old that I am going to have asthma and need my own health care plan right away. I was required to be under my parents plan, so if I want my asthma to be treated properly in the near future at an affordable cost, am I going to have to live under my parents’ health care for the rest of my life?

I know Trump’s common catch phrase is that we are going to be making America “great again.” He feels that this repeal of Obamacare’s benefits is supposedly going to benefit the world in some way. Honestly though, is America really going to be that great if most its people are suffering from the conditions that they can’t treat because it is too expensive? How can Trump prove that he really can America be “great again,” if barely anyone will be alive to see the end result?