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.
Marfa is a city in and the county seat of Presidio County in the high desert of far West Texas in the Southwestern United States. The population was 2,121 at the 2000 census. Marfa was founded in the early 1880s as a railroad water stop, and grew quickly through the 1920s. Marfa Army Airfield was located east of the town during World War II and trained several thousand pilots before closing in 1945 (the abandoned site is still visible ten miles east of the city). The base was also used as the training ground for many of the U.S. Army's Chemical mortar battalions. Today Marfa is a tourist destination, located between the Davis Mountains and Big Bend National Park. Attractions include the historical architecture and classic Texas town square, modern art, soaring, and the Marfa lights. Amateur etymologist Barry Popik has shown that Marfa is named after Marfa Strogoff, a character in the Jules Verne novel Michael Strogoff and its theatrical adaptation; the origin was reported in the Galveston Daily News on December 17, 1882, after the Marfa railroad station was established but before Marfa received a post office in 1883. The Handbook of Texas states that the wife of a railroad executive "reportedly" suggested the name "Marfa" after reading the name in the Fyodor Dostoevsky novel The Brothers Karamazov.