The health care debate is heating up in Washington. If the system finally gets the kinks worked out, there are a number of ways for investors to play it with exchange traded funds (ETFs).

President Barack Obama’s plan comes with a 10-year price tag of an estimated $634 billion, and he wants to enact it without boosting the budget deficit, reports Brian Faler for Bloomberg. Industry groups are gathering and have pledged to slow projected spending growth by $2 trillion over the next decades, but some are skeptical that the savings will ever materialize.

General Electric (GE) has been invited to Washington to unveil plans. They will unveil GE’s new efforts to improve “sustainability of global healthcare systems” involving health technology, independent living, rural health and cost containment, says Paul Glader for The Wall Street Journal.

GE is aiming at improving access to quality health care, while lowering costs, and developing products and marketing them inline with sustainability. The company is trying to benefit from a business standpoint in an effort to gain from the White House, and Obama’s benefit priorities.

The new initiative is likely to involve a deeper push by GE into information technology for health care, such as electronic medical records. The IT will help hospitals and doctors monitor progress and medical records on a paperless level.

• Vanguard Health Care (VHT): down 3.5% year-to-date

• Health Care SPDR (XLV): down 4.7% year-to-date

Tags: Health Care, Obama, Sector ETFs, VHT, XLV