Healthcare – a different look
The area of medical care and the prevention, intervention and prevention of sickness and disease is collectively known as health care. The World Health Organizations definition is a little different and refers more to the prevention of illness and facilities to encourage this, in addition to intervention that should be available to a single individual as well as a whole population. The organized provision of such facilities may constitute a healthcare system.
Early before the phrase healthcare was common, the English speaking countries 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. In most developed countries and many developing nations health care is provided to everyone regardless of their ability to pay. Of course the first country wide healthcare service started in the United Kingdom in 1948 and was called The National Health Service being the first to be organized and funded by the government.
Instead a system of compulsory administration funded health insurance with nominal fees can be provided, as with Italy, which, according to The WHO, has the second-best health system in the world. Other examples are Medicare in Australia, established in the 1970s by the Labor government, and by the same name Medicare in Canada, established between 19.6 and 1984. The main nations that do not support this general healthcare service are The United States 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 healthcare 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 largest and fastest-growing industries generally consuming at least 10 percent of gross domestic product of most developed countries, healthcare can form a large part of a country’s economy. America bucks this trend with, back in 2003, a health industry responsible or over 15 percent of gross domestic product but this is expected to rise considerably by 2016 when it will almost one fifth of America GDP.
This fact is highlighted by the large number of American citizens who have serious concerns about their health care, around one hundred eighty million to be precise, and the main worry for anyone seeking employment in America. A problem which came to a head when General Motors was seriously looking at bankruptcy over the strain its health car program was putting on the company. It was only after negotiations with the unions to reduce certain health benefits and the subsequent sell off of its poorly performing finance division that stopped the unthinkable from occurring.
In The United States, the prime concern of employees is their companies health care plans, even above their salaries, such is the importance placed on this increasingly costly service. The health of the people on this planet should be something that is founded on prevention rather than cure, a case of being proactive as apposed to reactive.