Definition of "provider" []

• One who supplies a means of subsistence: parents who were good providers. (noun)
• One that makes something, such as a service, available: primary health care providers. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "If a provider is allowed to charge an individual w/o insurance the same price that the provider negotiates with the insurance company why would an individual sign up for insurance?"
• "He must not ask his wife to go to work, because being a provider is his responsibility, and to ask her to do so, makes him less of a man."
• "Planned Parenthood, aside from being an abortion provider, is also an information and contraceptive provider, and those are much easier on everyone than abortions."