The New York Times is suddenly acting like Alain Enthoven and Jack Wennberg have taken over its health care reporting! This is the third article saying sensible things about the health care system in less than a week! Today, following the stories about practice variation in back surgery and Eliot Fisher’s work at Dartmouth, you wonks will all be amazed that Reed Abelson tells the public that In Health Care, Cost Isn’t Proof of High Quality.

They say that it takes about 17 years for a medical discovery to make it into general practice. Funnily enough I heard exactly the same stories about low quality hospitals and surgeons being the highest cost producers 17 years ago in Alain Enthoven’s class! How long before the Wennberg/Enthoven mantra make it into the public’s assessment of the health care system?