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Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine vetoed part of a bill that included a provision to protect medical free speech of doctors who have different opinions than state experts.
The Republican governor said the medical free speech clause would “totally gut” the state’s ability to punish doctors for medical malpractice.
🚨 JUST IN: Ohio Governor Mike DeWine vetoes bill that would’ve protected doctors who disagree with “state” medical opinions – Spectrum pic.twitter.com/VrsP3lSpmS
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) January 3, 2025
According to Dayton Daily News, DeWine said he vetoed the provision “as it is not in the public interest and instead could lead to devastating and deadly consequences for patient health.”
House Bill 315 would have blocked regulatory agencies from pursuing or threatening to pursue disciplinary actions against a medical professional for “publicly or privately expressing a medical opinion that does not align with the opinions of the board or agency,” the outlet noted.
BREAKING: Ohio Governor Mike DeWine just vetoed a bill that would’ve protected doctors who disagreed with Fauci, the CDC, NIAID, WHO, etc, from getting fired or losing their licenses.
The bill banned the Ohio Department of Health from disciplining doctors for expressing opinions… pic.twitter.com/zOyiFFUaaB
— George (@BehizyTweets) January 3, 2025
Per Dayton Daily News:
In that message and to journalists a week prior, DeWine argued that the provision would have completely kneecapped the state’s ability to punish doctors for medical malpractice, as those doctors could merely claim that the malpractice was their sincere medical opinion.
“All the doctor would have to say in defense is, ‘Well, it’s my opinion,’” DeWine told reporters when he promised to veto the provision in late December. “This would totally gut our ability to regulate health professionals.”
DeWine’s administration has opposed the idea ever since it was first proposed within House Bill 73, legislation championed by area Rep. Jennifer Gross, R-West Chester, that would allow patients to receive off-label prescriptions from their doctors and grant qualified immunity to pharmacists who fill those prescriptions, according to the legislature’s nonpartisan analysis of the House-passed version of H.B. 73.
Gross, a licensed nurse practitioner, testified in the Ohio House Health Provider Services committee that Ohio ought to ensure both patients and health professionals that there will be no retribution for using “life saving treatments.”
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has vetoed legislation that would have prohibited the Ohio Department of Health, Board of Pharmacy and State Medical Board from disciplining health care professionals who express a medical opinion that doesn’t align with their views. pic.twitter.com/xXIKKN6Zr7
— Victor Bigham (@Ravious101) January 3, 2025
From the Associated Press:
Ohio lawmakers passed House Bill 315 at around 2 a.m. on the final night of their lame duck session last month. That was after they turned it into a “Christmas tree bill,” loaded with controversial items from other pending legislation. DeWine also vetoed to other provisions of the 325-page bill that would have established new ethics law exemptions and dealt with clerks of court.
The Ohio Ethics Commission praised his veto of the ethics exemptions, which Executive Director Paul Nick said in a statement “would have significantly weakened” the state’s ethics law by allowing mayors and other executive officers to have interests in public contracts held by public agencies they serve.
Still, the medical freedom section would arguably have had the most sweeping impact. It called for prohibiting the Ohio Department of Health and the state’s pharmacy and medical boards from disciplining any pharmacist or other licensed health care professional for “publicly or privately expressing a medical opinion that does not align” with the “opinions” of any state, county or city health authority.
DeWine nonetheless left in place a provision in the bill that declares Ohio outside the jurisdiction of the World Health Organization, the U.N.’s health agency.