Columbus Free Press Libby Award, November 9, 2025
Bob Krasen, Healthcare for All Ohioans
Comments after the award presentation

A TV Commercial ad is based on 3 simple questions. “What’s the bad news? What’s the good news? And What’s the difference?”

The Bad News?

The people in the USA have a 3 year shorter life expectancy than our neighbors to the north in Canada.

The USA is not one of the 58 countries in the world which provide necessary healthcare to their people.

Our infant and maternal mortality are the highest among first world nations.

Hospitals are closing where they are most needed: in the inner cities and rural communities.

Doctors are tired of playing “Mommy may I?” with insurers, drug companies, and hospitals, having to get prior authorizations.

Clearly, the USA healthcare payment system not working for us.

The good news?

Medicare for All in the US Congress, or the Health Care for All Ohioans in the Ohio Legislature, would cover We the People for life… for all necessary medical conditions through any licensed medical provider.

Doctors would have 20 percent more time to see patients, because “prior authorizations” are gone.

Hospitals would be made whole by one payment per month covering all of their expenses, and could close their patient billing departments, which now need nearly one accountant for every patient bed.

Patients would never see a medical bill, deal with medical debt, or “out of network” nonsense. . .Just healthcare!

What’s the difference?

Bells ringing! Birds singing! People smiling! knowing that we no longer have a weighted albatross of medical payment chaos around our necks. In the adjusted words of Martin Luther King, “We’re free at last…free at last! Thank God Almighty, we’re free at last!”                  

All of us are needed to influence our legislators to Pass Medicare for All. We need 218 votes in the House; 51 in the Senate, and a President who will sign the bill.