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The AHA Friday joined the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other national organizations in urging the Supreme Court to review a 9th Circuit decision holding that the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act of 2005 does not provide complete immunity from tort liability for health care providers and other covered entities during the COVID-19 pandemic, “upending Congress’s carefully calibrated scheme.” 

“Over a decade ago, Congress recognized the possibility of a nationwide public health emergency like COVID-19, and expressly provided certain protections for those on the front line of responding to it, in the PREP Act,” the friend-of-the-court brief states “…[R]ather than leave the adjudication of disputes arising from a national emergency response to disparate state courts across the country, Congress established an exclusive federal remedial scheme and expressly preempted state law that might interfere with that scheme.”