Somnath Saha, MD, MPH, and colleagues co-authored a Perspective piece: "Giving Teeth to Comparative-Effectiveness Research – The Oregon Experience," in the Feb. 3 online edition of the New England Journal of Medicine. The paper urges that Oregon's 15 years of experience with evidence-based health care coverage and the potential of comparative-effectiveness research (CER) for curbing costs be taken into account in shaping national health care reform.

Dr. Saha is Associate Professor in the Departments of Medicine, Public Health & Preventive Medicine and Medical Informatics & Clinical Epidemiology, and a staff physician at the Portland VA Medical Center. The nation's insurance model, the paper argued, "insulates patients from the cost of care and rewards physicians for doing and spending more, even when the benefit is marginal or unproven."