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The expression health-care is the provision of medical services plus the general prevention and management of illness using professional medical resources. Yet, The WHO believes the meaning should also incorporate all related industries and be a service available to everyone irrespective of who they, which means individuals as well as whole groups of individuals. Any collective group of medical professionals and facilities dedicated to providing this would be termed a health care system.

Early on before the phrase health care was commonplace, 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 illness and disease. Most developed and even developing countries have a system of health care for all to cater for those who cannot pay. Established in 1948, The National Health Service in the United Kingdom was the world’s first universal health care system provided by government.

According to The World Health Organization, a good alternative to this system is that in Italy where insurance for health is a compulsory but is a government funded service and possibly the second best around the world. Canada and Australia have both begun similar systems and have been running since almost twenty 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 The United States and South Africa, although they are making reforms to their health service. The health care 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 people who are injured, sick, disabled, or infirm.

Over a relatively short period of time, the health care industry has become one of the fastest growing in the world with an average growth rate of just over 10 percent of the gross domestic product of many developed nations and is still increasing, playing a huge role in the domestic economies of most nations. With my background being primarily health oriented, I was happy to find Burn the Fat, Feed the muscle written with the same message in mind. The only world nation to differ is The USA with over fifteen percent according to figures published in 2003 but it is set to rise to almost 20 percent by the year 2016.

In The United States there are 180 million Americans who want health care and a recent study showed that it was the number one worry of those seeking work. 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. 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 changes in how individuals view working for any given company. Perhaps 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 health care system which is becoming a international problem.

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