Mark,
Depending on your sub floor, you could always screw/glue some 3/8 AC over it and then lay the laminate over the AC. This is a common practice. Transition strips between this area and other rooms would take up the differing floor heights.
If you decide to remove the old flooring, the difficult part for you wouldn’t be the removal, but the disposal. Removal is simple really. The hardest part is putting plastic up EVERYWHERE but the remediation area, and also taping the plastic. Then you have to dispose of the plastic as well as the material.
But, even if you did remove it yourself, from a regulatory perspective, it’s still there. Remediation is only “officially” recognized if it is removed by someone holding a fitness card. Oh, and if you ever sell the house, and you know it has asbestos flooring (or the appraiser), you may have no choice but to have it removed. It’s no different than if you have an underground fuel tank, you have to get soil samples tested and prove the tank isn’t / hasn’t leaked. If the samples show hydrocarbon levels, you get the joy of paying someone to remove the soil and dispose of it.
