And under Obamacare, insurance companies can no longer discriminate against women. Before, some wouldn't cover women's most basic needs, like contraception and maternity care, but would still charge us up to 50 percent more than men - for a worse plan.

While closing our innovation gaps won't solve all our problems, we have some very real opportunities to improve the quality of care that's delivered to millions of Americans.

What we've been finding is that when you remove the barriers to innovation, you can actually hold costs down while lifting entrepreneurs up and getting better health results.

There's a digital revolution taking place both in and out of government in favor of open-sourced data, innovation, and collaboration.

One of the pitfalls of writing about illness is that it is very easy to imagine people with cancer as either these wise, beyond-their-years creatures or else these sad-eyed, tragic people. And the truth is people living with cancer are very much like people who are not living with cancer.

If you're healthy, if you don't get sick much, if you don't go to the doctor much or use your health insurance much, you are a genetic lottery winner. It has nothing to do with the way you live, nothing to do with doing the right things. It's just sheer luck, and you are gonna pay for that.

As a black person in America, I am twice as likely as a white person to live in an area where air pollution poses the greatest risk to my health. I am five times more likely to live within walking distance of a power plant or chemical facility - which I do.

I just try to be in tune with my body. If I start to feel sick, I will try to catch it at the root. I don't really let myself get to the point where it becomes a problem. That's so important when you're travelling because if you land in Paris and you have to go from the airport straight to set, you don't have time to go to the doctor.