The American Health Care Industry

The sphere of medical care and the prevention, treatment and prevention of illness and disease is collectively known as healthcare. The World Health Organizations definition is a little different and refers more to the prevention of illness and services to encourage this, in addition to intervention that should be available to a single person as well as a whole population. Any collective group of medical professionals and facilities dedicated to providing this would be termed a healthcare system.

The English speaking world used to call this subject just medicine or refer to it the health sector which basically meant the same but it was before the term health-care was coined. In most developed nations and many developing countries healthcare is provided to everyone regardless of their ability to pay. This first started in the UK a few years after the end of World War 2 in 1948, and became the first health care service set up and run by a administration.

A system second to this, according to The World Health Organization is the one initiated in Italy where a compulsory system of insurance which the government funds, but at a relatively low cost per individual, is used. Canada and Australia have both begun similar systems and have been running since 19.6 and the 1970’s respectively both going by the name of Medicare. The main countries that do not support this universal health care service are America and South Africa, although they are making reforms to their health service. The healthcare industry is considered a profession which makes use of the skills of professional health care workers who provide a service related to the preservation or improvement of the health of individuals who are injured, sick, disabled, or infirm.

The health care industry is one of the world's biggest and fastest-growing industries generally going through at least ten percent of gross domestic product of most developed nations, health care can form an enormous part of a country's economy. Although in 2003 the healthcare costs paid to across the entire healthcare system, consumed 15.3 percent of the GDP of The USA, the biggest of any country in the world and is expected to reach almost twenty percent of GDP by 2016.

Presently in the The United States over one hundred eighty million citizens are looking for healthcare and it will be no surprise to learn that it is top of all concerns for those in and seeking work. Numerous large companies in The United States are feeling the effects of these rises in health care provision and an extreme case was where the car giant General Motors was seriously considering bankruptcy because of it. Luckily it didn’t happen after some concessions and compromises made with the unions but it does show how something like this can have an outcome on even the biggest of companies.

The American health care system costs a great deal to employers but it is the number one thing that potential workers look for in an employer and has seen many changes in how individuals view working for any given company. Maybe it is time health care was looked at in a different way and perhaps called health preservation with an accent on fitness and health to ease the need for a top heavy healthcare system which is becoming a global problem.