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Monday, May 25, 2009

The Growing Importance Of The Healthcare Industry

By Mark Cunningham

Health care, or healthcare, whichever expression you prefer, is the prevention, intervention and management of illness using the facilities offered by the medical, nursing and allied health professions. The World Health Organizations definition is a little different and refers more to the prevention of illness and facilities to promote this, in addition to treatment that should be available to a single person as well as a whole population. Working to together this way, the whole medical community would fall under the expression healthcare system.

Early on before the phrase healthcare was commonplace, the English speaking nations called it just plain medicine or more commonly the health sector but it still meant the provision of a health service to treat and cure sickness and disease. Even in most developing countries there is a form of health care provision for everyone whether they are in a position to pay or not. This first begun in the UK a few years after the end of World War 2 in 1948, and became the first healthcare service set up and run by a administration.

In Italy, they have a system that works by making everyone pay into a government funded insurance scheme which The WHO consider the second best healthcare system in the world. 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. These systems are almost opposite to the systems currently provided in American and South Africa although there are huge changes taking place in the system used by South Africa. health care professionals are dedicated to preventing illness and disease principally, but also to treat and protect the long expression health of their patients.

Whether you use the phrase healthcare industry or not, it is still one of the fastest growing around the world with an average cost of 10 percent of gross domestic product it also plays a large part in the economy of any country. Although in 2003 the healthcare costs paid to across the entire healthcare system, consumed 15.3 percent of the GDP of America, the largest of any country in the world and is expected to reach almost twenty percent of GDP by 2016.

This fact is highlighted by the large number of American citizens who have serious concerns about their health care, around 180 million to be precise, and the main worry for anyone seeking employment in The United States. Many large companies in America 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 effect 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 shifts in how individuals view working for any given company. Possibly it is time health care was looked at in a different way and perhaps called health preservation with an emphasis on fitness and health to ease the need for a top heavy healthcare system which is becoming a international issue.

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