General Paxton,

It’s time for you to stop trying to take health coverage away from Texans. If your healthcare repeal lawsuit to end the Affordable Care Act is successful, kids with asthma, moms with diabetes, neighbors with chronic health conditions and many others to lose their protections for pre-existing conditions and life-saving health coverage. We can’t imagine you want to be the Attorney General known for kicking kids and moms off their health insurance.

As your healthcare repeal lawsuit moves through the courts, the uninsured rate in Texas continues to climb. Some 5 million Texans are uninsured, and your lawsuit threatens to make that rate shoot up even further -- by 37 percent according to experts. This will hurt real Texans in every part of the state -- young people who rely on the ability to stay on their parents' plans, entrepreneurs who left the security of an employer plan to venture out on their own and create new jobs, seniors who will have to pay more for prescription drugs, 11.6 million Texans with pre-existing conditions, and so many more.

Illness and injury don't align themselves with one party or another, which is why strong majorities across political parties support key Affordable Care Act provisions such as pre-existing condition protections; Marketplace subsidies that make coverage more affordable; allowing young adults to stay on a parent’s plan to age 26; preventive health care with no out-of-pocket costs; and coverage of Essential Health Benefits.

This lawsuit has already done enough damage. Now on behalf of the millions of Texans who will be harmed if the Affordable Care Act disappears entirely, I urge you to leave the rest of the ACA alone and drop this lawsuit!