Health care law encompasses the laws and regulations governing hospital and health care administration, and an understanding of health care insurance is integral to it. There are significant differences in the types and amount of coverage provided by various private insurance policies, such as HMOs, PPOs, disability insurance, and hospital indemnity insurance, just as there are important differences in the cost to the purchasers of health insurance. There are also public health care insurance programs. Elderly and disabled persons may be eligible for coverage through the federal Medicare program. The joint state-federal Medicaid program helps certain individuals, including disabled persons and low-income elderly persons, pay for long-term care and in-home health care.
Athens-Clarke County is a unified city-county in Georgia, U.S. , in the northeastern part of the state. The University of Georgia is located in this college town and is responsible for the initial creation of Athens and its subsequent growth. In 1991, after a vote the preceding year, the original city abandoned its charter in order to form a unified government with Clarke County, referred to collectively as Athens-Clarke County. As of the 2000 census, the consolidated city-county (including all of Athens-Clarke County except Winterville and a part of Bogart) had a total population of 100,266. However, the most recent US Census estimate (2008) placed the population at 113,398. Athens-Clarke County is the fifth-largest city in Georgia and the principal city of the Athens-Clarke County, Georgia Metropolitan Statistical Area, which had a population of 189,264 as of the 2008 Census Bureau estimate.