Medicare is a social insurance program that serves more than 44 million enrollees (as of 2008). The program costs about $432 billion, or 3.2% of GDP, in 2007.
The definition of an institution is an established custom or practice, or a group of people that was formed for a specific reason or a building that houses the group of people. 1  Marriage is an example of a cultural institution. 2  A town council is an example of an institution of government.
The term institution is commonly applied to customs and behavior patterns important to a society, as well as to particular formal organizations of the government and public services.s structures and mechanisms of social order, institutions are one of the principal objects of study in the social sciences, such as political science, anthropology, economics, and sociology (the latter being described by David Durkheim as the science of institutions, their genesis and their functioning).