Spalding Regional Medical Center Chief Executive Officer John Quinn spoke to the Government Affairs Committee of the Griffin-Spalding Chamber of Commerce about health care Thursday morning.

Quinn began by describing how the medical industry operates differently from other industries. For example, third parties like Medicare, Medicaid and private insurers decide the payment rate, not the business or its customers. An increasing number of customers pay nothing, while others pay less than cost. He used the example of a shoulder surgery where a shoulder implant costs $2,000 more than the patient paid for the procedure. The medical industry operates in a highly litigious and regulated environment, which further increases costs.

He said the medical industry is faced with an unsustainable trend of rising costs, a rising number of uninsured and underinsured patients, a reimbursement system that pays by number of treatments and not by treatment outcomes and employer-provided insurance used to subsidize under-payment of government entities.

He said over the last 50 years, health-care costs have become 17 percent of the Gross Domestic Product and that the United States spends twice as much per capita than most Western countries. Between 2001 and 2007, wages rose 19 percent but medical costs rose 78 percent. 54 percent of this is paid for by employers and 25 percent by the government.

“People say, ‘We don’t want a government-funded health-care system,’” he said. “Well, we actually have one, to a large extent.”

The aging of the baby boomers and many Americans’ unhealthy lifestyles, which cause chronic disease, will further burden the health-care system. The advanced technology that makes so much possible also has a downside — it’s expensive.

Quinn described how he would reform the health-care system. His ideal system would be to expand coverage for the uninsured, encourage people to live healthier lifestyles and rebuild the systems in place for treating mental-health problems and substance abuse, which tend to funnel people into the most expensive types of care.

Then he described the recently passed federal health-care reform bill. The measure expands coverage by mandating all Americans have health insurance, creates state-based exchanges where people can buy health insurance, and subsidizes health-insurance premiums for those with less than a designated income. The plan’s $940 billion cost over the next 10 years is paid for by a series of increases in taxes and fees, as well as reductions in monies paid to hospitals that serve a large number of indigent patients.

He then briefly described the hospital tax recently passed by the Georgia General Assembly. The measure would be used to fund increased Medicaid reimbursements. He said Spalding Regional Medical Center would derive a net benefit from the program but hospitals that see few Medicaid patients will lose money.