Yesterday Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed Senate Bill 1580 (full text) which protects conscience rights of health care providers and insurers. The law provides in part:
It is the intent of the Legislature to provide the right of medical conscience for health care providers and payors to ensure they can care for patients in a manner consistent with their moral, ethical, and religious convictions. Further, it is the intent of the Legislature that licensed health care providers and payors be free from threat of discrimination for providing conscience-based health care....
A health care provider or health care payor has the right to opt out of participation in or payment for any health care service on the basis of a conscience-based objection....
A board ... may not take disciplinary action against a health care practitioner’s license or deny a license to an individual solely because the individual has spoken or written publicly about a health care service or public policy, including, but not limited to, speech through the use of a social media platform ... provided that the individual is not using such speech or written communication to provide medical advice or treatment to a specific patient or patients....
Pensacola News Journal reports on the new law.
