Health Policy and Cost-Effectiveness Analysis: Yes We Can. Yes We Must.

Just over 40 years have passed since the publication of thefirst cost-effectiveness analysis that arguably influenced major U.S. health policy (an analysis of Medicare coverage of renal replacement therapy in 1972) (1). In this issue, Pletcher and colleagues (2) use the same approach to an-swer an analogous policy question: What is the best strat-egy for using statins to prevent coronary heart disease (CHD) in the United States—following the Adult Treat-ment Panel III (ATP III) guidelines or treating on the basis of 10-year risk, attained age, or sex-specific alternative age thresholds? Before turning to their answer, we will first provide a brief introduction to cost-effectiveness analysis. Many find this technique to be methodologically complex and opaque. Although a complex model can be opaque to all but the expert, the principles of cost-effectiveness analysi