Medicaid, national health insurance program in the United States for low-income persons; established in 1965 with passage of the Social Security Amendments and now run by the Centers for Medic...

Health and Human Services, United States Department of, federal executive department charged with administering government health programs. Successor to the Department of Health, Education, an...

Great Society, in U.S. history, term for the domestic policies of President Lyndon Johnson. In his first State of the Union message, he called for a war on poverty and the creation of a Great ...

Daschle, Tom (Thomas Andrew Daschle), 1947–, U.S. senator from South Dakota (1987–2005), b. Aberdeen, S.Dak. A Democrat, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1978, where he s...

Finance, theory and practice of conducting large public and private dealings in money. Important institutions of private finance include those that deal with insurance, banking, stocks (see st...

Generic drug, a drug sold or prescribed under the nonproprietary name of its active ingredients or under a generally descriptive name rather than under a brand or trade name. The name of the a...

Hastert, Dennis (John Dennis Denny Hastert), 1942–, U.S. congressman, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives (1999–2007), b. Aurora, Ill. He attended Wheaton College (B.A., 1964) and Nor...

Socialized medicine, publicly administered system of national health care. The term is used to describe programs that range from government operation of medical facilities to national health-i...

Social security, government program designed to provide for the basic economic security and welfare of individuals and their dependents. The programs classified under the term social security ...

Pension, periodic payments to one who has retired from work because of age or disability. Pensions, originally thought of as charity, are now viewed as an essential part of the social responsi...