When it comes to choosing a health insurance plan, critical information that could literally spell the difference between life and death is conspicuously absent. Powerful national employer groups demanding transparency could change that.

Speakers repeatedly pointed to portions of the digital health superhighway that sorely need more concrete – in this case, concrete knowledge.

Call it the “delay death discount.” Engage with the Hancock’s diabetes wellness program on a continuing basis, and the insurer will cut your life insurance premium by up to 25 percent.

Can combining tech start-up “rah-rah,” health policy “blah-blah” and the “meh” of academic research accelerate the uptake of digital health innovation? To get better digital health interventions to market faster, we need a Partnership for Innovators, Policymakers and Evidence-generators (PIPE).

In September, 2008, the campaign asked me to serve as a surrogate in a debate with John McCain’s health care adviser when one of Obama’s close advisers – as opposed to me, who’d met the candidate once at a campaign event – couldn’t make it.