Middle School
Worksheets
Health Care Is Important
Marcy's passion in life was running. She dreamed of being a part of the Olympic relay team, passing the baton to her teammate, or bursting through the tape at the finish line, the baton held high in her hand.
Realizing that achieving her dream required hard work and practice, Marcy ran as often as she could. But one afternoon as she was running around the track, she started to wheeze. She felt her throat closing, and she began to gasp for air.
Marcy thought that she was just tired or had caught some sort of bug. But a few weeks later when the same thing happened, she was worried. A trip to the doctor diagnosed her condition as asthma. A simple prescription put Marcy back running on the track, her Olympic dream still in her head.
But what if Marcy hadn't been able to go to the doctor because her family couldn't afford to pay for it? For many people, especially those without health insurance or with insufficient health insurance, a trip to the doctor is not affordable. In the U.S. in 2016, and estimated 29 million people were uninsured, and 3 million of them were children.
