Health care, or healthcare, whichever term you prefer, is the prevention, intervention and management of sickness using the facilities offered by the medical, nursing and allied health professions. According to The WHO, health care embraces all the goods and facilities designed to promote health, including preventive, curative and palliative interventions, whether directed to individuals or to populations. The organized provision of such services may constitute a healthcare system.

Early before the phrase health care was common, 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. Most developed and even developing countries have a system of health care for all to cater for those who cannot pay. Of course the first country wide healthcare service begun in the UK in 1948 and was called The National Health Service being the first to be organized and funded by the administration.

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. Other examples are Medicare in Australia, established in the 1970s by the Labor administration, and by the same name Medicare in Canada, established between almost twenty and 1984. The main countries that do not support this universal healthcare service are America and South Africa, although they are making reforms to their health service. health care professionals are dedicated to preventing illness and disease primarily, but also to treat and protect the long term health of their patients.

Worldwide, over recent decades, there has been a huge increase in the amount of money spent on health care and it is now one of the fastest growing sectors in every developed country with an average cost of 10 percent of the gross domestic product. Although in 2003 the health care costs paid to across the entire health care system, consumed 15.3 percent of the GDP of America, the largest of any country in the world and is anticipated to reach almost twenty percent of GDP by 2016.

In The USA there are one hundred eighty million Americans who want health care and a recent study showed that it was the number one concern of those seeking work. The steep increases in the health care system in America almost contributed to the bankruptcy of the giant car manufacturer General motors. Luckily, negotiations between the Union and GM management made a deal to reduce some of the benefits but keep operating as usual but the were force to sell off their under performing finance arm GMAC.

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.