Health-care groups laying groundwork for post-election debate over cost cuts

Regardless of whether Congress's supercommittee meets its deadline for finding ways to reduce the federal deficit, budget and policy experts are braced for Washington to soon face the painful task of finding even more savings—and they anticipate that health spending, which makes up more than a fifth of the federal budget, will be a main target. Some health-care leaders are already laying the groundwork to redirect a debate they're expecting in 2013, after the 2012 election. They hope to prevent spending from simply being shifted from one part of the system to another. Jack Lewin, chief executive of the American College of Cardiology, argues that proposals to address the root causes of high health-care costs have been largely ignored in Washington.