About fifteen years ago, I became painfully aware of how crucial the healthcare topic is. After all, something is not on top of your priority list until it hits you close at home right. Before being diagnosed with an incurable autoimmune disease, Systemic Lupus Erythematosus, I viewed health insurance as something all Americans had for those “just in case something happens moments.” I only really used my health insurance for check-ups and prescriptions for antibiotics for common viruses and bacteria. I thanked God that I never really had anything too serious growing up. As the saying goes, we are all one moment from a tragedy or sickness.

My turning point came when I was told I had SLE, a disorder that has multiple symptoms and can affect your body organs, joints, and skin. Over the years, the disease has caused me to be in and out of the hospital, take multiple drugs, miss school, and work, and adjust my life in other ways. It has been a crazy battle but I am still standing and winning.

When I was first diagnosed I was still on my mother’s insurance. The problems came when I had to seek insurance on my own. Because I was now seeking insurance as a person with a pre-existing condition, insurance companies took my misfortune as their gain to want to charge me crazy high prices to obtain health insurance or outright deny me coverage altogether. They would be out too much money doing the very things they exist for…provide quality health insurance for people to use when they are sick or for preventative care. So what’s a girl to do? Go without health insurance and pray that my Lupus doesn’t flare up,

For a few months, that plan worked. I lived at home with my mother so my expenses were low and the majority of the money I made went to out-of-pocket costs for specialty routine doctor visits and medications to keep my Lupus in a remission type condition. However, that didn’t last. My Lupus flared up, attacked one of my organs hard, and the next thing I was doing was shelling about $1,000 plus for monthly treatments to get it I check in addition to all the previous money I was spending on my health. Being a young professional just started out in my career that was an expense I couldn’t keep up with.

Advance to the day when a man named Barack Obama came into power with the passage of his signature legislation of the Affordable Care Act and I thought the heavens had opened. I finally would be able to get affordable healthcare for a preexisting condition. Obamacare, as it came to be called, was expanded overall coverage for all with a single payer plan. Of course, nothing would make all Americans happy, but it did help out millions who had been either forgotten or abused by health insurance companies tactics; more so than any health care bill in recent history. The passage of the bill was both historic and triumph.

Despite the good in brought, some political minds were just burning at that thought that is was Democratic legislation. And it became the goal of Republicans to repeal and replace it as soon as they got in power. That time has come.

This week the man in the White House struck the biggest blow to health care by saying that the entire legislation should be struck down after citing with a federal Texas judge ruling that invalidated Obama health care legislation. Per his usual stance on almost everything goes against what he previously during his presidential campaign run to not touch federal health care programs. Doing away with this law would affect millions of Americans’ current health coverage.

This shocking move has shaken political leaders on both sides of the aisle. Republican Sen. Susan Collins expressed her disappointment and opposition to reporters about the announcement. "If the administration is opposed to the ACA, and clearly there are provisions of the law that do need to be fixed, the answer is for the administration to work ... with Congress and present a plan to replace and fix the law. Not to, through the courts, seek to invalidate it altogether."

While House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is motivating the Democrats to get ready for battle to defend and protect Obamacare in a released statement, she said, “On the very first day that the Democratic Majority held the gavel, the House of Representatives voted to intervene against Republicans' monstrous health care lawsuit to defend people with pre-existing conditions and the health care of all Americans. While the Trump Administration broadens its monstrous ambitions from destroying protections for pre-existing conditions to tearing down every last benefit and protection the Affordable Care Act provides, Democrats are fiercely defending the law of the land and protecting all Americans' health care."

And all of this comes just after Pelosi said she was willing to work with Rep. Pramila Jayapal introduction of Medicare for All bill, H.R 1384, last month. In that bill, Rep. Jayapal said to stop putting health care over profit. It is a single payer proposal that allows states to create Medicaid buy-ins giving Americans more choice in their healthcare with lower costs and possibly better quality of care. It focuses on how Americans pay far higher costs for medical coverage than other countries. But, of course, it is not perfect as well.

However, with Donald Trump’s stance to support the Department of Justice and federal ruling what is the plan to take care of America health wise? Well, he doesn’t really have one. “The Party of Healthcare” won’t have plans or anything in place if the Affordable Care Act starts is deemed unconstitutional.

Health care once again will be a hot button issue of the presidential campaigns of 2020. In the last presidential election, Senator Bernie Sanders was in the Democratic in the forefront speaking the loudest. Today, presidential hopefuls all have the opinion about the issue.

Kamala Harris has already voiced her opinion via Twitter. "We must fight back again with everything we've got. And in 2020, we need to elect a president who will make health care a right." She previously supported Senator Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All bill in 2017 saying, “health care should be a right.” In particular, she favors eliminating private health insurance. "The idea is that everyone gets access to medical care, and you don't have to go through the process of going through an insurance company, having them give you approval, going through the paperwork, all of the delay that may require,” Harris said in a town hall in Iowa on CNN. She favors for the public to have more options.

Like Harris, Senator Cory Booker supports Medicare for All. But has different views. He is not necessarily in favor of eliminating private health insurance but is more focus on lowering drug costs. If a drug costs more in America than other foreign countries, Booker says that manufacturer should be penalized. He supports giving Americans the option to also import drugs from other countries. Booker said during his CNN Town Hall, “Too many Americans put aside life-saving drugs because they can’t afford them.”

Julian Castro has vowed to make access to quality health care his first priority if elected as president. “American lives depend on defeating Donald Trump,” Castro tweeted. He backs the Medicare-for-All.

Senator Elizabeth Warren supports Medicare for All and has co-sponsored the bill.

She has owned ideas as well as introducing her healthcare plan called “The Consumer Health Insurance Protection Act.” Her plan puts more controls on private insurance companies, allows people to have more access to tax credits, and protects folks from policy changes and price hikes. Warren took to Twitter to state, “We need #MedicareForAll – and until we get it, there's no reason private insurers can't provide coverage that lives up to the high standards of our public health care programs.”

Another presidential Democratic candidate in favor of Medicare-for-All is Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. As a co-author of the bill, she supports Americans buying into Medicare. She knows it is time Americans had something better. Gillibrand via Twitter tweeted, “If it’s a fight for healthcare this administration wants, it’s a fight they’ll get-and we will win.”

“All Americans should have access to affordable healthcare through Medicare or a public option,” said presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard. Noting that the current healthcare system benefits the big insurance and pharmaceutical companies instead of the people who need it, Gabbard wants to empower the government to bring down prescription costs through price negotiations. Her website says she believes that the Affordable Care Act was a step in the right direction, but points out that issues remain with the number of uninsured and high costs related to deductibles, copayments for medical services, and prescription drugs.

Healthcare is always a major issue in politics. The road to the White House won’t be won without a succinct plan in how to best address this for all Americans to have superiority care coverage at a reasonably priced rate where healthcare companies are not taking advantage of people.