| A | B |
|---|
| Health maintenance/management organization (HMO) | contracted by individuals or insurance companies to provide health care for a yearly fee. Such network health plans limit the choice of doctors and treatments. About 60 percent of Americans are enrolled in health maintenance organizations or similar programs. |
| National health insurance | A compulsory insurance program for all Americans that would have the government finance citizens' medical care. First proposed by President Harry S. Truman, the plan was soundly opposed by the American Medical Association. |
| Preferred Provider Organization (PPO) | is a type of managed care health insurance plan that utilizes a network of physicians and facilities contracted by the insurance carrier to provide services within negotiated price boundaries |
| Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) | originally created in 1997 is a state and federal partnership that targets uninsured children and pregnant women in families with incomes too high to qualify for most states Medicaid programs but often to low to afford private coverage. |
| Medicare | a program added to the social security system in 1965 that provides hospitalization insurance for the elderly and permits older Americans to purchase inexpensive coverage for doctor fees and other medical expenses |
| Medicaid | A public assistance program designed to provide health care for poor Americans, funded by both the states and the national government. |
| Environmental Protection Agency | An agency of the federal government created in 1970 and charged with administering all the government's environmental legislation. It also administers policies dealing with toxic wastes. It is the largest federal independent regulatory agency. |
| Clean Air Act of 1970 | the law aimed at combating air pollution, by charging the EPA with protecting and improving national air quality |
| Water Pollution Control Act of 1972 | A law intended to clean up the nation's rivers and lakes, by enabling regulation of point sources of pollution |
| Endangered Species Act of 1973 | this law requires the federal government to protect all endangered species |
| Superfund | a fund created by Congress in 1980 to clean up hazardous waste sites. Money for the fund comes from taxing chemical products. |
| Global Warming | an increase in the average temperature of the earth's atmosphere, especially a sustained increases that causes climatic changes. |
| National Environmental Policy Act | passed in 1969 the centerpiece of federal environmental policy that requires agencies to file environmental impact statements |
| Environmental Impact Statement | a detailing of a proposed policy’s environmental effects which agencies are required to file with the EPA every time they propose to undertake a policy that might be disruptive to the environment |
