As it copes with minimal funding increases and cuts to social care, England’s National Health Service (NHS) has been struggling to meet patient demand during one of the most severe flu seasons of recent years. Some have argued that Britons’ frustration with the situation reflects dissatisfaction with their universal health care system. But as the Commonwealth Fund’s David Blumenthal, M.D., and the Health Foundation’s Jennifer Dixon write in STAT, the NHS remains highly popular and ranks high among wealthy nations on measures of health care access and quality.

Blumenthal and Dixon say that “the U.S. can learn from the National Health Service — and other health systems — about paths forward and paths to avoid as it designs a uniquely American approach to its immense health care problems.”

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is proposing to reverse federal limitations on short-term insurance, which does not have to comply with Affordable Care Act (ACA) market rules like preexisting condition protections and coverage of mental health services and other essential benefits. In an updated To the Point post, Georgetown University researchers explain that the proposed rule would rescind restrictions designed to prevent insurers from siphoning off healthy enrollees from the individual marketplace.

The ACA led to the biggest surge in Medicaid enrollment in a generation. It also kicked off a set of federal initiatives between 2011 and 2016 to help meet the needs of new beneficiaries. A To the Point post by George Washington University’s Sara Rosenbaum and colleagues looks at how the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) pushed these provider payment and care delivery reforms forward.

The CREATES Act, designed to curb brand-name drug manufacturers’ use of anticompetitive tactics to block access to generic drugs, didn’t make it into the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018. But Congress did include legislation to reduce prescription drug prices and costs. Likely the least understood part of that legislation is a technical fix to how the Medicaid program pays for “line extensions,” or drugs that have undergone minor changes from their original versions — sometimes referred to as “new formulation drugs.” Former congressman Henry Waxman and Bill Corr and Kristi Martin explain on To the Point.

The Trump administration has indicated it will allow up to five states to test new ways of managing their Medicaid prescription drug programs, and recent proposals by Massachusetts and Arizona to use some of the cost-control tools available in the commercial market seem tailor-made for this plan. But there are many more ways that Medicaid programs could tackle drug costs than are outlined in the administration’s 28-page report, says Trish Riley in a new Health Affairs blog post.

Research shows that having both chronic conditions and behavioral health issues is associated with higher health care costs. But a Commonwealth Fund–supported study in Medical Care led by Peter J. Cunningham finds that spending on both inpatient and emergency care is much higher for low-income people with “co-occurring” conditions than it is for their higher-income counterparts.