Presidential contenders are starting to announce their candidacies for the 2020 election, which means it's also time for them to commit to their health reform plans. In a column for STAT, Commonwealth Fund President David Blumenthal, M.D., says the window for health care reform closes just six months into a new presidency.

The temptation for Democrats will be to embrace "Medicare for all," he says. But other, possibly more politically viable alternatives exist, such as building on the Affordable Care Act through options to buy into Medicare or Medicaid. For Republicans, the path forward will be much easier, Blumenthal says, if their candidate in 2020 — likely to be the sitting president — runs on a well-defined health care position that telegraphs where he intends to take the nation.

A piece of good news surfaced recently: the death rate from cancer in the United States has declined 27 percent since its peak in 1991. In a new To the Point post, the Commonwealth Fund's Shanoor Seervai and David Blumenthal, M.D., observe that while this progress is cause for hope, it must be taken in context with other cancer-related findings and other public health data.

In health care, consumer choice is one priority Republicans and Democrats agree on. In a new Commonwealth Fund issue brief, Harvard University's Richard Frank examines the Affordable Care Act's insurance marketplaces to identify areas where policymakers from both parties could harness choice and competition to improve health care coverage, consumer satisfaction, and affordability.

The efforts of state insurance departments to regulate short-term health plans and protect consumers from poor-quality coverage and abusive sales tactics may be undermined by a loophole: many short-term plans are being sold through out-of-state associations that are exempt from state regulation. Emily Curran, Dania Palanker, and Sabrina Corlette of Georgetown University's Center on Health Insurance Reforms explain on To the Point.

What actions has the Food and Drug Administration taken to further the Trump administration’s goal to bring down prescription drug prices? In a new post, former congressman Henry Waxman and other experts at Waxman Strategies present a detailed timeline of the FDA’s strategy on prices and highlight some of its key moves to inject competition into the growing market for biologic drugs.

The German and U.S. health systems resemble each other in some ways, but not so much when it comes to prescription drug pricing: Germany's use of reference pricing and price negotiation keeps drug costs well below those in the U.S. In a new issue brief, James C. Robinson of the University of California, Berkeley, and colleagues explain how Germany does it, and why some version of its approach might work in this country.

On the latest episode of The Dose, the Commonwealth Fund's Munira Gunja, Roosa Tikkanen, and Shanoor Seervai dig into the findings of our recent report on the status of women's health and health care in the U.S. and 10 other wealthy nations. Listen, and then subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

The Commonwealth Fund has partnered with the nonprofit Healthwise to create "personas" illustrating the experiences of patients with high needs — older adults living with multiple conditions, people with advancing illness, and those under 65 living with disabilities — and their caregivers. Visit our new web portal to access the personas and videos of these individuals telling their stories.

The experiences of older adults who need long-term services and supports are the focus of two new Commonwealth Fund reports by Amber Willink and colleagues at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

• The researchers find that, despite widespread use of assistive devices like grab bars and walkers, many older Americans living in the community don’t get the assistance they need to perform activities of daily living and remain in their homes.
• An analysis of spending on long-term services and supports finds that millions of Medicare beneficiaries with functional or cognitive impairments have trouble paying for food, rent, utilities, medical care, and prescription drugs.

Use our interactive map to track the status of Medicaid expansion across the country and find out which states have imposed, or are seeking to impose, work requirements on certain beneficiaries.