Cynthia Whitaker

Repealing liability protections for health care facilities that acted in good faith and in accordance with public health guidance during the COVID-19 pandemic would set a deeply troubling precedent for how we respond to future public health emergencies. During an unprecedented crisis characterized by rapidly evolving science, resource scarcity, and federal and state directives that changed week to week, health care administrators and clinical staff made decisions under conditions of extraordinary uncertainty — not out of negligence or indifference, but out of a genuine effort to follow the best available guidance from the CDC, CMS, and state health departments. Holding facilities legally liable for outcomes that resulted from compliance with those very directives would effectively punish institutions for doing what was asked of them by the public health system itself. This creates a chilling effect that would discourage future compliance with emergency guidance at precisely the moments when coordinated, system-wide adherence matters most. It would also divert critical institutional resources away from patient care and into prolonged litigation, disproportionately burdening safety-net hospitals and rural facilities that were already operating at or beyond capacity. Rather than undermining the public health infrastructure that communities depend on, lawmakers should pursue targeted accountability mechanisms that distinguish between good-faith compliance and genuine institutional negligence — a distinction this repeal fails entirely to make