Travel & Lifestyle: What A Trump Presidency Could Mean For Your Health

Americans are bracing for a second Donald Trump presidency. His policies and leadership will impact all aspects of life, and while no one knows exactly what will unfold, many people are scared — especially when it comes to their health.

“During his last time in office, Trump botched the pandemic response, he spread misinformation everywhere, he contributed to restricting access to reproductive health care, he tried to repeal [the Affordable Care Act] and he set the world back on climate action,” said Lucky Tran, a science communicator based in New York. “For me, it’s extremely worrying to have someone in charge with such a poor track record on health and science.”

What’s more, Trump has said he’ll put Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — an anti-vaccine advocate — in charge of many aspects of health care.

“[Kennedy] is not qualified to have an opinion on anything health-related,” Dr. Sylvia Gates-Carlisle, the treasurer of the Association of Black Women Physicians, told HuffPost.

Here are the issues health experts are most worried about:

“[Trump] is an individual who we have already four years of experience with who takes credit for reversing Roe [v. Wade] and is proud of it,” said Dr. Meera Shah, the chief medical officer of Planned Parenthood Hudson Peconic in New York.

Without the protections established under Roe, states have the power to decide whether abortion is legal within their borders, “despite what most Americans want, … which is they want it to be available and accessible to them,” Shah said. This election, abortion protection measures were on the ballot in 10 states, and of them, seven states voted to support them.

Currently, 21 states have abortion bans or restrictions in place, according to The New York Times.

“What we’ve seen is exactly what we knew would happen, which is patients are being harmed, patients are dying, because of these bans,” Shah said.

“Abortion has become heavily politicized, and now this go around, all of a sudden we’re hearing a different tune, and we’re being told that [Trump is] going to protect the rights of women. But quite frankly, we just don’t know — I have a hard time believing him.”

Millions of people in the U.S. who rely on government health programs could also be at risk of losing access to care.

“I’m most concerned about the funding that’s going to be cut for health care organizations, for possibly Medicare or [Medicaid] programs, and I’m concerned about the programs that are funded through [the Department of Health and Human Services] that might be cut,” said Dr. Sheila Young-Mercado, the president of the Association of Black Women Physicians.

Medicare, the government insurance program for elderly Americans, could become more expensive for patients, and Medicaid, which provides healthcare to people who have limited income, is “always on the chopping block because people view it as an entitlement,” said Gates-Carlisle.

In a recent interview, Kennedy said he won’t take away Americans’ access to vaccines. Still, experts are concerned.

“Especially if RFK has any kind of authority, I think it’s going to become more difficult to get new vaccines approved, and there’ll be increased scrutiny of the safety of current vaccines,” said Sara Gorman, the CEO of Critica, an organization that fights science misinformation, and author of “The Anatomy of Deception: Conspiracy Theories, Distrust, and Public Health in America.”

“I don’t actually think that they’ll necessarily be able to pull current vaccines from the market. … There was some talk about the vaccine schedule disappearing. I think that that seems a little bit less likely, but I do think that there might be more hoops to jump through,” Gorman said.

Young-Mercado said the language in Project 2025, the far-right policy plan put forward by conservatives in the event of a Trump win, has her concerned about continued funding for programs that look into racial equity in health care and beyond.

“Let’s talk about multiple studies showing that Black people get less radiation therapy for cancer, Black people get less money spent on them in health care, … less referrals to transplants,” Gates-Carlisle said.

Young-Mercado said the likes of Project 2025 were using a misleading definition of “diversity, equity and inclusion” to cut back on programs that try to prevent these kinds of disparities.

“It’s basically saying we need to open the doors to allow people who have been discriminated against and left out, who have not had access to now have access,” Young-Mercado said. “We’re asking you to ensure that patients who need a heart transplant, patients who need a kidney transplant, will be able to receive those and not continue to experience the discrimination based on racism or sexism or any other ‘ism’ that you want to throw at them.”

In vitro fertilization is already under attack in certain parts of the country, and experts worry this could get worse during a second Trump presidency. “Fetal personhood” laws, statutes that give fetuses the same rights as people, are in effect in one third of U.S. states, according to Politico.

These restrictions “not only undermine scientific integrity but could criminalize critical aspects of IVF, making the procedure inaccessible,” Dr. Stacy De-Lin, the associate medical director of Planned Parenthood Hudson Peconic, told HuffPost via email.

As a result of these laws and ongoing litigation, fertility clinics have paused treatment in the past, disrupting a process that for patients is very much time-dependent.

“Our patients and our community are devastated and panicked, and there’s so much evidence that they have reason to be,” said Dr. Kaiyti Duffy, the chief medical officer of the Los Angeles LGBT Center.

Trump’s campaign rhetoric singled out transgender people in particular, Duffy added.

“The rhetoric has really damaged a group of people who are so vulnerable … and now we’re going into an administration that has self-identified as being anti-trans,” she said.

While we don’t know precisely what the Trump administration will do in regard to gender-affirming care, Trump repeatedly attacked Vice President Kamala Harris on the campaign trail for supporting providing health care to incarcerated trans people. Project 2025 outlines a range of attacks on the health of trans people, including striking gender-affirming care from veteran health care coverage and outlawing gender-affirming care for minors.

“We’ve seen throughout the country, different states enacting legislation to restrict hormones, and I think the fear is that this is going to happen on a national level,” Duffy said.

Many Americans who aren’t transgender may not understand that gender-affirming care is medically necessary and life-saving, she argued.

“These are individuals who are fighting for their lives to get this care so that they can live out their true nature. Denying this care really does risk their lives. It risks their safety. It risks their mental health,” she said.

Trump plans to increase fossil fuel production during his second term. And Project 2025 threatens the Environmental Protection Agency and environmental justice.

These things could make climate change worse, which doesn’t only impact weather patterns.

“Climate change impacts our health in multiple ways,” said Tran. As the planet warms, ticks and mosquitoes will become more widespread, putting Americans at greater at risk of infections like Lyme disease, Eastern equine encephalitis, West Nile virus and more. Instances of heat stroke increase as the world gets hotter too, he noted.

“The act of burning fossil fuels itself is actually one of the greatest contributors to early death in the world, prematurely killing 7 million people a year, because fossil fuels are bad for your health,” Tran added.

If a Trump administration rolls back pollution regulations, that could have “consequences for respiratory health,” Gorman added.

Climate change also makes natural disasters more common; more wildfires means more wildfire smoke, which increases risk of respiratory diseases, according to Tran. And severe storms can create flooding and water contamination issues, in addition to killing people directly.

“I’m worried about the future of our health and scientific agencies under another Trump presidency, because for one, RFK Jr. wants to restrict their powers, and two, Project 2025 has details for plans to dismantle public health and science and environmental agencies,” Tran said. Agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency could all see changes.

″[What] concerns me most, actually, is this talk about splitting the CDC in two: one part to work on infectious disease and one part to work on chronic disease,” said Gorman.

“It actually makes no scientific sense to split those things up,” she said. “But I think more importantly, what doing something like that would do would be to weaken the [CDC] as kind of an all-encompassing public health institution, and that, to me, is one of the most concerning things that I’ve heard so far.”

These changes could weaken things like the CDC’s disease warning system or the EPA’s oversight of environmental rules.

″[The EPA] also is involved in a lot of regulatory processes, which keeps our air and water clean, and so really restricting the EPA regulatory powers will make all of us less healthy,” Tran noted.

And problems at the FDA could cause food safety to be compromised, said Tran.

Turning off the news and shutting off your phone can be a good way to deal with post-election stress in the short term, but Gorman said that it’s important not to do that if these changes start to happen.

“Don’t retreat. I think people are wanting to hide a little bit in light of all this, and a lot of people want to quit social media and just get out of it so that they don’t see any of the discussion, but I think the more people do that, the less that we have a chance of fighting back,” Gorman noted.

If you’re not informed, you’ll have no idea what you even can or need to do to protect yourself, your loved ones and your community.

“We still have agency,” Tran added, “And there are many things we can all do as an individual that can help protect our community’s health.”

“Even if things are stalling at the federal level, a lot of important health policies actually happen at the state and local level … and there are many different tools that we can use to help, [like] protests, mutual aid, community care, local legislation and litigation,” Tran said.

You can also try to find trusted doctors who can share accurate, science-backed information with you and to vote in local elections, which directly impact your health, too.

“I think the takeaway is that good public health is a collective endeavor, and regardless of who holds the highest office, we all still have agency, and there are many things that we can do in our own communities and at the local and state levels to not only protect public health but make progress,” Tran said.