Healthcare can be a divisive topic among political groups all over the world, but among businesspeople it is almost unilaterally viewed as a great opportunity for growth. The healthcare industry is massive and no matter who you are, you will need it at some point in your life. That has always been the case, so why is the healthcare industry such a focus of business, investment, and education as more and more people are turning towards healthcare as a career? This article will explore the business behind healthcare and why the industry is constantly growing.
The Affordable Care Act
The Affordable Care Act provides health insurance to an estimated 30 million Americans. It is designed to provide accessible healthcare to any American who needs it – which partly explains how it is fueling demand for the healthcare industry.
The Affordable Care Act has been criticized by many senior Republicans, who equate it with socialist philosophies, so it can be difficult to understand why it is actually driving a boom in the healthcare industry. To answer that question, take a look at a country with a centralized healthcare system: The United Kingdom with its National Health Service (NHS).
The British population much loves the NHS, but it is also loved by many businesses, to whom the NHS is a 10-billion-pound business opportunity. When a government seeks to serve its population with a service, it normally involves private businesses in some way, which injects money straight from the government into a particular industry.
That is just what is happening in the USA with the Affordable Care Act. You may have seen reports of long wait times and too few workers working at Affordable Care Act locations, but this just represents a lag in market response to demand. In the long term, the need for nurses, doctors, and many of the other jobs that the healthcare industry creates will grow massively – in fact, nursing is predicted to be the third most demanded job of 2021.
Revolutionary Online Teaching
It is now possible to learn a skill using the internet and become a fully qualified healthcare professional, just with online classes. There are many different options for people looking to work in healthcare, but with an accelerated BSN nursing program, aspiring nurses can get a Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree in just 16 months of studying online.
This type of degree and other online degrees in healthcare have changed everything – people who now aspire to work in healthcare but cannot attend a university because it is too expensive or not flexible enough in its hours can enter the healthcare workforce. Workers are the lifeblood of any industry, and when the healthcare industry has more professionals to support its growth, it starts to boom. There is currently a shortage of healthcare professionals, but this is expected to change in the near future, as people worldwide recognize the importance of healthcare (no doubt enhanced by the recent pandemic). Healthcare is relatively well paid, with healthcare workers tending to earn between 55k and 100k depending on their position.
The Aging American Population
The baby boomers were called baby boomers for a reason – they greatly contributed to the US population. Now they are getting older and starting to retire, contributing to a huge shift in US population demographics. There is predicted to be a 50% shift in age demographics from 2000 to 2030, towards the over 65s. There will be a huge need for medical professionals, especially those who specialize in the particular requirements that aging communities require. Although the baby boomers did their bit to grow the population of America, the USA is still a generation away from their children retiring; what is adding to the aging population is medical advancements that allow people to live longer than ever before.
The World of Health-Tech
One of the hottest areas of investment right now is health tech. There are countless startups that are doing amazing things in the world of health – from technology to aid accuracy of diagnoses to futuristic-looking goggles that show blind people more about their environment than ever before.
Although health-tech is exciting, it is providing more supplementary support to the healthcare boom – it is bringing attention back to the exciting potential of healthcare. Still, allowing people to live longer contributes to the aging population and, therefore, to a significant growth niche in the wider industry.
It is So Varied
When you think of the healthcare industry, you might think solely of hospitals and practitioners, but it is such a massive industry. There are so many opportunities for business and employment, and improvement throughout a spectrum of healthcare offerings. For example, one of the fastest-growing occupations within the healthcare industry is personal care, aiding some of the aging population, which is one of the most accessible healthcare jobs and typically just needs a diploma from high school.
As varied as the healthcare industry is, its boom is partly due to lateral growth; it is getting more varied. More and more people specialize in more and more niches, offering very precise help to people in very specific situations. A good example of this is the fact that there are extremely highly paid healthcare professionals who only treat people that play a particular sport at a high level.
This is true for the jobs that people traditionally think of when healthcare is mentioned (a sports-medicine orthopedic surgeon in the USA, for example, has an average salary of $679,750), but the average dietitian or nutritionist still makes $61,210, without having as much of a specialized target market.
There are many different reasons that the healthcare industry is booming; there are financial, political, social, and demographic reasons that are all interacting with each other. What is perhaps most important is that the healthcare industry does not show signs of slowing down. Even if the political environment changes, the opportunity for further growth is still vast, making a career in healthcare a good choice for lifelong job security.
