Healthcare

Last Updated: January 2010

Sector structure/Market size

The healthcare industry in the country, which comprises hospital and allied sectors, is projected to grow 23
per cent per annum to touch US$ 77 billion by 2012 from the current estimated size of US$ 35 billion,
according to a Yes Bank and ASSOCHAM report.

The sector has registered a growth of 9.3 per cent between 2000-2009, comparable to the sectoral growth
rate of other emerging economies such as China, Brazil and Mexico. According to the report, the growth in
the sector would be driven by healthcare facilities, both private and public sector, medical diagnostic and
pathlabs and the medical insurance sector.

Healthcare facilities, inclusive of public and private hospitals, the core sector, around which the healthcare
sector is centered, would continue to contribute over 70 per cent of the total sector and touch a figure of US$
54.7 billion by 2012.

Adds a FICCI-Ernst and Young report, India needs an investment of US$ 14.4 billion in the healthcare sector
by 2025, to increase its bed density to at least two per thousand population.

According to a latest report by McKinsey, driven by strong local demand, Indian healthcare market is
expected to continue growing close to previously projected rates of 10 to 12 per cent. With average
household consumption expected to increase by more than seven per cent per annum, the annual
healthcare expenditure is projected to grow at 10 per cent and also the number of insured is likely to jump
from 100 million to 220 million.

Health Insurance

Currently only 10 per cent of the Indian population has health insurance, which means that there is
tremendous scope for growth in this area.

According to the Yes bank and Assocham report, the medical insurance sector would account for US$3
billion in the next three years, up from the estimated current size of over US$1 billion.

In 2008-09, health insurance has emerged as one of the fastest growing segments in the non-life insurance
industry with 30 per cent growth.

Health insurance premium collections touched US$ 1.45 billion in 2008-09 compared with US$ 1.12 billion in
the previous year, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority said in its annual report for 2008-
09.

Investments in Healthcare

The sector has been attracting huge investments from domestic players as well as financial investors and
private equity (PE) firms. Funds such as ICICI Ventures, IFC, Ashmore and Apax Partners invested about
US$ 450 million in the first six months of 2008-09 compared with US$ 125 million in the same period a year
ago, according to an analysis carried out by Feedback Ventures. Feedback Ventures expects PE funds to
invest at least US$ 1 billion in the healthcare sector in the next five years.

According to a Venture Intelligence study, 12 per cent of the US$ 77 million venture capital investments in
the July-September 2009 quarter were in the healthcare sector.

As part of its ‘Healthymagination’ initiative, GE will spend US$ 3 billion over the next six years on research
and development, provide US$ 2 billion of financing over the next six years to drive healthcare information
technology and health in rural and underserved areas, and invest US$ 1 billion in partnerships, content and
services.

The government, along with participation from the private sector, is planning to invest US$ 1 billion to US$ 2
billion in an effort to make India one of the top five global pharmaceutical innovation hubs by 2020.

The Ajay Piramal Group-owned private equity (PE) firm, India Venture Advisors, will launch its second US$
150 million healthcare fund next year.

Leading international clinic chain Asklepios International is gearing up for a foray into the Indian healthcare
market. As part of the 2.3 billion euro group’s strategy to enter the sub-continent, Asklepios is mulling the
launch of a US$ 100 to US$ 200 million fund.

Gulf-based healthcare group Dr Moopen is investing over US$ 200 million for setting up hospitals and eye-
care centres across India.

Healthcare major, Fortis Hospitals plans to invest US$ 55 million, to expand its facilities pan-India.

Healthcare
Last Updated: January 2010

Medical Tourism

In 2007, India treated 450,000 foreign patients ranking it second in medical tourism.

According to a study by McKinsey and the CII, medical tourism in India could become a US$ 2 billion
industry by 2012 (from US$ 350 million in 2006). Credit Suisse estimates medical tourism to be
growing at between 25-30 per cent annually.

The key selling points of the medical tourism industry are its cost effectiveness and its combination
with the attractions of tourism. Treatment cost is lowest in India – 20 per cent of the average cost
incurred in the US, Singapore, Thailand and South Africa.

Besides world class medical facilities, India is also trying to promote its traditional medicine such as
ayurveda.

Areas of Opportunity

The fast growth in the Indian healthcare sector has created various pockets of opportunities for
investors. A recent FICCI-Ernst and Young report highlights several such areas within the healthcare
sector.

• Medical infrastructure forms the largest portion of the healthcare pie. Beds in excess of one
million need to be added to reach a ratio of 1.85 per thousand at an investment of US$ 77.9
billion.
• The medical equipment industry is around US$ 2.17 billion and is growing at 15 per cent per
year. It is estimated to reach US$ 4.97 billion by 2012.
• The medical textiles industry is projected to double to reach US$ 753 million by 2012.
• Clinical trials have the potential to become a US$ 1 billion industry by 2010 and the health
services outsourcing sector has the potential to grow to US$ 7.4 billion by 2012, from US$
3.7 billion in 2006.
Notwithstanding the current economic slowdown, the US$ 2.26 billion Indian wellness services
market is expected to grow at about 30-35 per cent for the next five years on the back of rising
consumerism, globalisation and changing lifestyles, according to a FICCI-Ernst and Young study.

Government Initiative

The Government launched the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) in 2005. It aims to provide
quality healthcare for all and increase the expenditure on healthcare from 0.9 per cent of GDP to 2-3
per cent of GDP by 2012.

During the 2009 interim budget, the government allocated US$ 2.42 billion for NRHM.

The Tamil Nadu government has allocated US$ 698.16 million for health and family care for the year
2009-10, up from US$ 564.34 million a year ago. The increased budget includes creating a mega
blood bank—Asia’s largest—in Chennai and upgrading several hospitals, besides launching a new
insurance scheme.

The government has announced a US$ 63.2 million initiative to promote domestic manufacture of
medical devices such as stents, catheters, heart valves and orthopaedic implants that will lead to
lower prices of these critical equipment.

Healthcare
Spotlight...
You get what you pay for
As the pressure to control health spending increases, payers,
governments, and providers are compelled to scrutinize the
quality and amount of care they'll be able to deliver in the future.
Health leaders around the world see the health payment system
as one of the best tools in managing this challenge and achieving
sustainability. However, with less than 40% of those same
leaders ranking their existing payment system as good, every
country has room to improve and can benefit from shared best
practices. See You get what you pay for.
 In HealthCast 2020, PricewaterhouseCoopers looks at solutions
and responses from around the world to the globalisation and
industry wide convergence of healthcare. What insights, best
practices and policy lessons can be learned from experiences in
various countries to create a globally sustainable health system?
Who, or what, is driving the solutions? More

Rising costs, expanding market demand, and increasing customer dissatisfaction will
characterise healthcare in this decade and help redefine the roles of patients, providers
and payors. Simply put, healthcare organisations face a growing imbalance of supply and
demand. On the demand side is a large population of aging patients in deteriorating
health who demand more services, pharmaceuticals, and medical breakthroughs. The
supply side, however, is hampered by a shrinking pool of investment capital, a shortage
of willing caregivers, and aging physical plants straining under the current volume of
patients.

Clearly, demand is driving the system and flipping the traditional paradigm in which
many health systems attempted to control costs by controlling supply. Under these
conditions, healthcare providers must meet the challenge of effectively managing patient
demand while payors must drive patients to the most cost-effective providers. The
healthcare organisations that prosper in this environment will be those that recognise the
supply/demand imbalance and respond with flexible and effective processes for
delivering superior customer service.

How PricewaterhouseCoopers can help you

Leading healthcare providers, payors, and health sciences organisations turn to

PricewaterhouseCoopers for business insights and solutions. PwC's range of capabilities
and experience means that we can provide integrated solutions that support the strategic
objectives of your entire organisation. Our global network of healthcare industry
professionals provide assurance, tax, and business advisory services that are grounded in
a highly evolved understanding of the entire healthcare system and the dynamics that
drive it. On every project, we use our advanced network of resources to provide powerful
strategies that help you succeed in a competitive and changing marketplace.

Health care industry

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Please help improve this article by expanding it. Further information might be
found on the talk page. (June 2007)
The health care industry or health profession treats patients who are injured, sick,
disabled, or infirm. The delivery of modern health care depends on an expanding
interdisciplinary team of trained professionals.[1][2]

For purposes of finance and management, the healthcare industry is typically divided into
several groups and sectors. The Global Industry Classification Standard and the Industry
Classification Benchmark divide the industry into two main groups: (1) health care
equipment & services and (2) pharmaceuticals, biotechnology & related life sciences.
Health care equipment and services comprise companies that provide medical equipment,
medical supplies, and health care, such as hospitals, home health care providers, and
nursing homes. The second industry group comprises sectors companies that produce
biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and miscellaneous scientific services.[3]

Contents
[hide]

• 1 Providers and professionals

• 2 Delivery of services
• 3 Medical tourism
• 4 History
o 4.1 Growth
o 4.2 Transformation
• 5 See also
• 6 References
o 6.1 Notes

• 7 Further reading

[edit] Providers and professionals

Main article: Health care provider

A health care provider or health professional is an organization or person who delivers

proper health care in a systematic way professionally to any individual in need of health
care services.

Today the health care industry is considered as one of the largest industry throughout the
world. And this health care industry includes thousands and thousands of hospitals,
institutions which will provide primary, secondary & tertiary level of care. To deliver this
care, these health care industries require health care workers, and among these health care
workers most of them will be nurses busy in providing care to each & every patient in all
aspect. And it has been seen that, throughout the decades the health care workers i.e.
nurses have manually adjusted hospital equipments and have provided care to the
patients. Manually adjusting the hospital equipments and repetitive manual handling
human loads is a physically challenging job and it often causes work related
musculoskeletal disorders or other injuries.

[edit] Delivery of services

This section needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be
challenged and removed. (June 2007)

The health care industry includes the delivery of health services by health care providers.
Usually such services are paid for by the patient or by the patient's insurance company;
although they may be government-financed (such as the National Health Service in the
United Kingdom) or delivered by charities or volunteers, particularly in poorer countries.
The structure of health care charges can also vary dramatically among countries. For
instance, unlike the United States, Chinese hospital charges tend toward 50% for drugs,
another major percentage for equipment, and a small percentage for health care
professional fees.[4]

There are many ways of providing health care in the modern world. The most common
way is face-to-face delivery, where care provider and patient see each other 'in the flesh'.
This is what occurs in general medicine in most countries. However, health care is not
always face-to-face; with modern telecommunications technology, in absentia health care
is becoming more common. This could be when practitioner and patient communicate
over the phone, video conferencing, the internet, email, text messages, or any other form
of non-face-to-face communication.

[edit] Medical tourism

Main article: Medical tourism

Medical tourism (also called medical travel, health tourism or global health care) is a
term initially coined by travel agencies and the mass media to describe the rapidly-
growing practice of traveling across international borders to obtain health care.

Such services typically include elective procedures as well as complex specialized

surgeries such as joint replacement (knee/hip), cardiac surgery, dental surgery, and
cosmetic surgeries. However, virtually every type of health care, including psychiatry,
alternative treatments, convalescent care and even burial services are available. As a
practical matter, providers and customers commonly use informal channels of
communication-connection-contract, and in such cases this tends to mean less regulatory
or legal oversight to assure quality and less formal recourse to reimbursement or redress,
if needed.
Over 50 countries have identified medical tourism as a national industry.[5] However,
accreditation and other measures of quality vary widely across the globe, and there are
risks and ethical issues that make this method of accessing medical care controversial.
Also, some destinations may become hazardous or even dangerous for medical tourists to
contemplate.

[edit] History
[edit] Growth

The health care industry is one of the world's largest and fastest-growing industries.[6]
Consuming over 10 percent of gross domestic product of most developed nations, health
care can form an enormous part of a country's economy. In 2003, health care costs paid to
hospitals, physicians, nursing homes, diagnostic laboratories, pharmacies, medical device
manufacturers and other components of the health care system, consumed 15.3 percent[7]
of the GDP of the United States, the largest of any country in the world. For United
States, the health share of gross domestic product (GDP) is expected to hold steady in
2006 before resuming its historical upward trend, reaching 19.6 percent of GDP by 2016.
[8]
In 2001, for the OECD countries the average was 8.4 percent [9] with the United States
(13.9%), Switzerland (10.9%), and Germany (10.7%) being the top three.

US health care expenditures totaled US$10.8 quadrillion in 2006.[10] According to Health

Affairs, USD$7,498 will be spent on every woman, man and child in the United States in
2007, 20 percent of all spending. Costs are projected to increase to $12,782 by 2016.[11]

[edit] Transformation

China has implemented a long-term transformation of its health care industry, beginning
in the 1980's. Over the first twenty-five years of this transformation, government
contributions to health care expenditures have dropped from 36% to 15%, with the
burden of managing this decrease falling largely on patients. Also over this period, a
small proportion of state-owned hospitals have been privatized. As an incentive to
privatization, foreign investment in hospitals — up to 70% ownership — has been
encouraged.[4]

[edit] See also

• Health care
• Health sciences
• Medical tourism
• Health economics
• Medicine
• Philosophy of Healthcare

[edit] References
[edit] Notes

1. ^ Princeton University. (2007). health profession. Retrieved June 17, 2007, from
http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=health%20profession
2. ^ United States Department of Labor. (2007, February 27). Health Care Industry
Information. Retrieved June 17, 2007, from
http://www.doleta.gov/BRG/Indprof/Health.cfm
3. ^ [[1] "Yahoo Industry Browser - Healthcare Sector - Industry List"]. [2].
4. ^ a b Robert Yuan (2007-06-15). "China Cultivates Its Healthcare Industry". Genetic
Engineering & Biotechnology News (Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.): pp. 49–51.
http://www.genengnews.com/articles/chitem.aspx?aid=2165. Retrieved 2008-07-07.
"(subtitle) The Risks and Opportunities in a Society Undergoing Explosive Change"
5. ^ Gahlinger, PM. The Medical Tourism Travel Guide: Your Complete Reference to Top-
Quality, Low-Cost Dental, Cosmetic, Medical Care & Surgery Overseas. Sunrise River
Press, 2008
6. ^ From the Henry J Kaiser Family Foundation

Health care
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
For The Office episode, see Health Care (The Office).

Surgery one of the most invasive, difficult, and expensive procedures in medicine.

The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is a well-known international
relief movement.

Health care, or healthcare, is the treatment and management of illness, and the
preservation of health through services offered by the medical, dental, complementary
and alternative medicine, pharmaceutical, clinical sciences (in vitro diagnostics), nursing,
and allied health professions. Health care embraces all the goods and services designed to
promote health, including “preventive, curative and palliative interventions, whether
directed to individuals or to populations”.[1] The definition of health care is continuously
evolving and varies significantly between different cultures.[2]

Before the term health care became popular, English-speakers referred to medicine or to
the health sector and spoke of the treatment and prevention of illness and disease. The
social and political issue of access to healthcare in the US has led to public debate and
confusing use of terms such as "health care" (medical management of illness or disease),
health insurance (reimbursement of health care costs), and the public health (the
collective state and range of health in a population).

Contents
[hide]

• 1 Health-care industry
• 2 Health Care reforms in the United States
• 3 Research
o 3.1 World Health Organization
• 4 Economics
• 5 Systems
• 6 Politics
• 7 Health care by country
• 8 See also
• 9 Notes

• 10 External links

[edit] Health-care industry

Main article: Health care industry

The delivery of modern health care depends on an expanding group of trained

professionals coming together as an interdisciplinary team.[3][4]

The health-care industry incorporates several sectors that are dedicated to providing
services and products dedicated to improving the health of individuals. According to
market classifications of industry such as the Global Industry Classification Standard and
the Industry Classification Benchmark the health-care industry includes health care
equipment & services and pharmaceuticals, biotechnology & life sciences. The particular
sectors associated with these groups are: biotechnology, diagnostic substances, drug
delivery, drug manufacturers, hospitals, medical equipment and instruments, diagnostic
laboratories, nursing homes, providers of health care plans and home health care.[5]
According to government classifications of Industry, which are mostly based on the
United Nations system, the International Standard Industrial Classification, health care
generally consists of hospital activities, medical and dental practice activities, and other
human health activities. The last class consists of all activities for human health not
performed by hospitals or by medical doctors or dentists. This involves activities of, or
under the supervision of, nurses, midwives, physiotherapists, scientific or diagnostic
laboratiories, pathology clinics, ambulance, nursing home, or other para-medical
practitioners in the field of optometry, hydrotherapy, medical massage, music therapy,
occupational therapy, speech therapy, chiropody, homeopathy, chiropractice,
acupuncture, etc.[6]

[edit] Health Care reforms in the United States

Main article: Health care in the United States

Health care reform is a major agenda in the United States aside economic recovery.
President Barack Obama and Democratic leaders of Congress are keen to overhaul the
current health care system, citing it as inefficient and unaffordable to Americans, and
replace it with a comprehensive national system of health insurance.

In 2009, the overhaul of the health care system in the United States was approved and the
Senate passed an $871 billion bill. This was a major step towards health care reform and
the stage was now set. By the end of March 2009, the chairmen of five Congressional
committees had reached a consensus on the main ingredients of legislation, and insurance
industry representatives had made some major concessions. The chairmen, all Democrats,
agreed that everyone must carry insurance and that employers should be required to help
pay for it. They also agreed that the government should offer a public health insurance
plan as an alternative to private insurance. [7].

But the matter started to become complicated when the Democratic Party lost its Senate
seat in Massachusetts to Republicans losing its 60th vote which gave it an advantage over
the Republicans. A health care reform was further dealt a blow with the announcement
that Billy Tauzin, a top lobbyist who positioned the pharmaceutical industry firmly
behind health-care reform, would resign. [8] A meeting held between Democrat and
Republican lawmakers on February 25, 2010, resulted in an impasse. [9]

[edit] Research
See also: List of health care journals, List of medical journals, List of pharmaceutical
sciences journals, List of bioinformatics journals, and Medical literature

Top impact factor academic journals in the health care field include Health Affairs and
Milbank Quarterly. The New England Journal of Medicine, British Medical Journal, and
the Journal of the American Medical Association are more general journals.
Biomedical research (or experimental medicine), in general simply known as medical
research, is the basic research, applied research, or translational research conducted to aid
the body of knowledge in the field of medicine. Medical research can be divided into two
general categories: the evaluation of new treatments for both safety and efficacy in what
are termed clinical trials, and all other research that contributes to the development of
new treatments. The latter is termed preclinical research if its goal is specifically to
elaborate knowledge for the development of new therapeutic strategies. A new paradigm
to biomedical research is being termed translational research, which focuses on iterative
feedback loops between the basic and clinical research domains to accelerate knowledge
translation from the bedside to the bench, and back again.

In terms of pharmaceutical R&D spending, Europe spends a little less that the United
States (€22.50bn compared to €27.05bn in 2006) and there is less growth in European
R&D spending.[10][11] Pharmaceuticals and other medical devices are the leading high
technology exports of Europe and the United States.[11][12] However, the United States
dominates the biopharmaceutical field, accounting for the three quarters of the world’s
biotechnology revenues and 80% of world R&D spending in biotechnology.[10][11]

[edit] World Health Organization

Main article: World Health Organization
See also: Global health

The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized United Nations agency which
acts as a coordinator and researcher for public health around the world. Established on 7
April 1948, and headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, the agency inherited the mandate
and resources of its predecessor, the Health Organization, which had been an agency of
the League of Nations. The WHO's constitution states that its mission "is the attainment
by all peoples of the highest possible level of health." Its major task is to combat disease,
especially key infectious diseases, and to promote the general health of the peoples of the
world. Examples of its work include years of fighting smallpox. In 1979 the WHO
declared that the disease had been eradicated - the first disease in history to be completely
eliminated by deliberate human design. The WHO is nearing success in developing
vaccines against malaria and schistosomiasis and aims to eradicate polio within the next
few years. The organization has already endorsed the world's first official HIV/AIDS
Toolkit for Zimbabwe from October 3, 2006, making it an international standard.[13]

The WHO is financed by contributions from member states and from donors. In recent
years the WHO's work has involved more collaboration, currently around 80 such
partnerships, with NGOs and the pharmaceutical industry, as well as with foundations
such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation.
Voluntary contributions to the WHO from national and local governments, foundations
and NGOs, other UN organizations, and the private sector (including pharmaceutical
companies), now exceed that of assessed contributions (dues) from its 193 member
nations.[14]

[edit] Economics
Main article: Health economics

Health economics is a branch of economics concerned with issues related to scarcity in

the allocation of health and health care. Broadly, health economists study the functioning
of the health care system and the private and social causes of health-affecting behaviors
such as smoking.

A seminal 1963 article by Kenneth Arrow, often credited with giving rise to the health
economics as a discipline, drew conceptual distinctions between health and other goals.[15]
Factors that distinguish health economics from other areas include extensive government
intervention, intractable uncertainty in several dimensions, asymmetric information, and
externalities.[16] Governments tend to regulate the health care industry heavily and also
tend to be the largest payer within the market. Uncertainty is intrinsic to health, both in
patient outcomes and financial concerns. The knowledge gap that exists between a
physician and a patient can prevent the patient from accurately describing his symptoms
or enable the physician to prescribe unnecessary but profitable services; these imbalances
lead to market failures resulting from asymmetric information. Externalities arise
frequently when considering health and health care, notably in the context of infectious
disease. For example, making an effort to avoid catching a cold, or practising safer sex,
affects people other than the decision maker.

The scope of health economics is neatly encapsulated by Alan William's "plumbing

diagram"[17] dividing the discipline into eight distinct topics:

• What influences health? (other than health care)

• What is health and what is its value
• The demand for health care
• The supply of health care
• Micro-economic evaluation at treatment level
• Market equilibrium
• Evaluation at whole system level; and,
• Planning, budgeting and monitoring mechanisms.

Consuming just under 10 percent of gross domestic product of most developed nations,
health care can form an enormous part of a country's economy. In 2001, health care
consumed 8.4 per cent of GDP across the OECD countries[18] with the United States
(13.9%), Switzerland (10.9%), and Germany (10.7%) being the top three.

The United States and Canada account for 48% of world pharmaceutical sales, while
Europe, Japan, and all other nations account for 30%, 9%, and 13%, respectively.[11]
United States accounts for the three quarters of the world’s biotechnology revenues. hey
bebe

[edit] Systems
A group of Chilean 'Damas de Rojo', volunteers on their local hospital.
Main article: Health care system
See also: Preventive medicine and Social medicine

Social health insurance is where a nation's entire population is eligible for health care
coverage, and this coverage and the services provided are regulated. In almost every
country, state or municipality with a government health care system a parallel private,
and usually for-profit, system is allowed to operate. This is sometimes referred to as two-
tier health care. The scale, extent, and funding of these private systems is variable.

A traditional view is that improvements in health result from advancements in medical

science. The medical model of health focuses on the eradication of illness through
diagnosis and effective treatment. In contrast, the social model of health places emphasis
on changes that can be made in society and in people's own lifestyles to make the
population healthier. It defines illness from the point of view of the individual's
functioning within their society rather than by monitoring for changes in biological or
physiological signs.[19]

The United States currently operates under a mixed market health care system.
Government sources (federal, state, and local) account for 45% of U.S. health care
expenditures.[20] Private sources account for the remainder of costs, with 38% of people
receiving health coverage through their employers and 17% arising from other private
payment such as private insurance and out-of-pocket co-pays. Opponents of government
intervention into the market generally believe that such intervention distorts pricing as
government agents would be operating outside of the corporate model and the principles
of market discipline; they have less short and medium-term incentives than private agents
to make purchases that can generate revenues and avoid bankruptcy. Health system
reform in the United States usually focuses around three suggested systems, with
proposals currently underway to integrate these systems in various ways to provide a
number of health care options. First is single-payer, a term meant to describe a single
agency managing a single system, as found in most modernized countries as well as some
states and municipalities within the United States. Second are employer or individual
insurance mandates, with which the state of Massachusetts has experimented. Finally,
there is consumer-driven health, in which systems, consumers, and patients have more
control of how they access care. This is argued[by whom?] to provide a greater incentive to
find cost-saving health care approaches. Critics of consumer-driven health say that it
would benefit the healthy but be insufficient for the chronically sick, much as the current
system operates. Over the past thirty years, most of the nation's health care has moved
from the second model operating with not-for-profit institutions to the third model
operating with for-profit institutions; the greater problems with this approach have been
the gradual deregulation of HMOs resulting in fewer of the promised choices for
consumers, and the steady increase in consumer cost that has marginalized consumers
and burdened states with excessive urgent health care costs that are avoided with
consumers have adequate access to preventive health care.

A few states have taken serious steps toward universal health care coverage, most notably
Minnesota, Massachusetts and Connecticut, with recent examples being the
Massachusetts 2006 Health Reform Statute[21] and Connecticut's SustiNet plan to provide
quality, affordable health care to state residents.[22]

[edit] Politics
Main article: Health policy

The politics of health care depends largely on which country one is in. Current concerns
in England, for instance, revolve around the use of private finance initiatives to build
hospitals which it is argued costs taxpayers more in the long run.[23] In Germany and
France, concerns are more based on the rising cost of drugs to the governments. In Brazil,
an important political issue is the breach of intellectual property rights, or patents, for the
domestic manufacture of antiretroviral drugs used in the treatment of HIV/AIDS.

The South African government, whose population sets the record for HIV infections,
came under pressure for its refusal to admit there is any connection with AIDS[24] because
of the cost it would have involved. In the United States 12% to 16% of the citizens are
still unable to afford health insurance. State boards and the Department of Health regulate
inpatient care to reduce the national health care deficit. To tackle the problems of the
perpetually increasing number of uninsured, and costs associated with the US health care
system, President Barack Obama says he favors the creation of a universal health care
system.[25] However, New York Times opinion columnist Paul Krugman said that Obama's
plan would not actually provide universal coverage,[26] and Factcheck.org alleges that
Obama's predicted savings were exaggerated.[27] In contrast, the state of Oregon and the
city of San Francisco are both examples of governments that adopted universal healthcare
systems for strictly fiscal reasons.
[edit] Health care by country
Main article: Health care system

Health care systems are composed of individuals and organizations that aim to meet the
health care needs of target populations. There are a wide variety of health care systems
around the world. In some countries, the health care system planning is distributed among
market participants, whereas in others planning is made more centrally among
governments, trade unions, charities, religious, or other co-ordinated bodies to deliver
planned health care services targeted to the populations they serve. However, health care
planning has often been evolutionary rather than revolutionary.

[edit] See also

Health portal

• Acronyms in healthcare
• Alliance for Healthy Cities
• Consumer Health Coalition
• Elderly care
• Health care politics
• Health care provider
• Health care proxy
• Health disparities
• Health informatics
• Health law
• Health promotion
• Health science
• Healthcare reform
• Managed care
• Medical ethics
• Medical savings account
• Nightingale's environmental theory
• Nurse-managed health center
• Philosophy of healthcare
• School health services
• Youth health

[edit] Notes
1. ^ World Health Organization Report. (2000). "Why do health systems matter?".
WHO.
2. ^ Appel, Jacob M. "Health care hard to recognize, tough to define," Albany
Times-Union November 12, 2009
3. ^ Princeton University. (2007). health profession. Retrieved June 17, 2007, from
Princeton University
4. ^ United States Department of Labor. (February 27, 2007). Health Care Industry
Information. Retrieved June 17, 2007, from Employment & Training
Administration (ETA) - U.S. Department of Labor
5. ^ "Yahoo Industry Browser - Healthcare Sector - Industry List".
http://biz.yahoo.com/p/5conameu.html.
6. ^ Welcome to the United Nations: It's Your World
7. ^
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics/healt
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