President Obama hopes so.

But, as Abraham Verghese writes, we can’t be so sure of that. The great cost-cutting hopes proposed by the government, which also include information technology and preventive medicine, all have very little data that show there will be any meaningful cost savings.

Are we focusing on the wrong things for cost control? Instead of making the difficult decisions, which includes revamping the physician payment system, the government is proposing solutions that aren’t likely to work. Cutting costs involves denying unnecessary care to patients, but that will likely meet stiff resistance. Indeed, as I’m sure you’ve read elsewhere, one person’s waste is indeed another’s income.

Also, is comparative effectiveness research just latest fad, akin to the evidence-based medicine movement?  Dr. Verghese urges caution:

I worry that “Comparative Effectiveness” or “CE” is going to be the next medical buzz word, just like “Evidence Based Medicine” or “EBM” has been the buzz word for a decade. “Evidence Based Medicine” is a term which makes about as much sense as “Sex-based intercourse”–Were we practicing based on zodiac signs before EBM came along? . . . Soon we’ll have a generation of physicians who are CE experts to bump out the EBM experts.

That’s just brilliant.