OH Gov. Mike DeWine vetoes medical free speech provision in larger bill

With both free speech and disagreements within the medical community emerging as hot button topics over the past several years, it is no surprise that a decision made a Midwestern Republican governor have garnred significant attention in recent days.

As the Associated Press reports, Ohio GOP Gov. Mike DeWine last week vetoed a portion of a bill that proponents claimed would safeguard the free speech of medical professionals, but detractors said would hinder the government's ability to reign in harmful – and potentially dangerous – misconduct.

DeWine says no

It was late on Thursday that the governor declared that he had signed four pieces of legislation into law, but that a series of line-item vetoes were also issued as part of that burst of activity.

One of those vetoes dispatched the so-called “medical free speech protection provision that was attached to House Bill 315 at the eleventh hour, as the Center Square explained.

The contested measure would have prevented state boards from taking disciplinary action against doctors, pharmacists, or others within the healthcare realm who offered medical opinions distinct from those promulgated by the boards themselves or any “state, county, or city health authority.”

The protection would have extended to opinions provided in public or in private.

DeWine, however, was not having any of it, and he exercised his line-item veto ability to strike the provision from the aforementioned bill.

Opinions on speech measure diverge

In outlining the justification for his veto, DeWine said, “Ohio's medical licensing boards exist to protect patients and the public from bad actors in the medical field. Section 3 792.07(B) threatens patient safety by providing a health care professional, including hospitals and inpatient facilities, with a legal shield that would prevent being held to account for dangerous or harmful medical care given to a patient by them saying there was a difference of 'medical opinion.'”

DeWine continued, “Section 3792.07(B) substantially limits state regulatory agencies from appropriately responding to patient and public complaints by investigating and disciplining health care professionals for harm they have caused patients.”

As the AP noted, the nonpartisan group Ohio Advocates for Medical Freedom that has worked to promote a constitutional amendment limited the ability of businesses, governments, and healthcare providers to impose vaccine mandates, had been in support of the provision DeWine vetoed.''

Despite his veto of the aforementioned speech provision, DeWine did allow to stand a provision in the larger bill that puts Ohio outside the reach of the World Health Organization's edicts.

While the merits of the medical free speech protection provision will likely continue to be debated in Ohio and elsewhere, in the end, it was DeWine who ultimately held the veto pen and the power to act, sealing its fate in the Buckeye State.