LANSING – Rising health care costs, due to medical errors, unnecessary treatments and an antiquated payment structure, is dragging down consumer spending in other areas, an ultimately hurting the economy, a report released by the Economic Alliance of Michigan said.

Eventually, some way has to be found to control health care costs, said Bret Jackson, president of the EAM, and to reduce them.

However, he said in a press briefing, the state’s attention is not focused on the issue. Until it does look at overall health care costs and reaches the point where policymakers feel it is an urgent issue, Jackson doubted effective action would be taken.

But the portion of the economy controlled by health care has grown so large, so fast that combined with the prominence government has in the economy health care and government spending make up more than half the economy, Jackson said.

The EAM is a coalition of Michigan businesses and private-sector unions that has for decades focused on health care costs and other benefits costs as a way of helping control overall costs for employers.

The report said the cost of providing health care benefits for four workers in a company equals the salary of a fifth worker. Company executives – in one poll 90 percent asked – have said if they could bring the cost of health care down they would be able to hire more workers, Jackson said.

The report also said that while median family incomes have grown by 0.4 percent between 2008 and 2013, the average cost of health insurance premiums increased by 35 percent during the same time. And the portion that employees have to contribute to the cost of the insurance has jumped by 57 percent during the same time, he said.

That means the average worker, in practical terms, is making less money than he or she did in 2007. Which also means less money is being spent on other consumer goods, Jackson said.

Jackson said he had a list of proposals for lawmakers to help control costs, but until the issue grows in concern with them, it wasn’t effective to outline some of those proposals.

However, if health care systems installed better control on waste and medical errors, that alone would have a major effect on medical costs. Jackson said if medical waste could be cut by one-third it would return as much as $3 billion to the general economy.

The issue has not yet achieved a sense of urgency, Jackson said, in part because lawmakers have focused on other issues such as roads.

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