PAHPA reauthorization should be a top priority for Congress
November 2024
The Big Cities Health Coalition and 112 other organizations urge Senate and House leadership to pass a comprehensive reauthorization of the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act (PAHPA) before the end of 2024.
The Senate and House health committees have each passed reauthorization bills that make critical improvements to our nation’s health security programs, originally authorized in PAHPA, to prevent, prepare for, and respond to any national health security threats.
These threats—whether they emerge from advances in biotechnology and artificial intelligence, naturally occurring outbreaks, major storms, deliberate attacks, or accidents—require an agile, authorized, responsive government infrastructure.
Failing to reauthorize PAHPA now would have serious effects on our country’s economic wellbeing, national security, and health given the rapidly changing threat landscape.
The last three PAHPA reauthorization packages shared major recurring themes: they all adjusted to the changing threat landscape, focused on challenges identified since the prior bill, and strengthened our nation’s health security with each reauthorization. A new reauthorization bill would continue to do that by strengthening existing programs and continuing to adapt and improve America’s health security infrastructure for new and future challenges.
Failing to reauthorize PAHPA now would have serious effects on our country’s economic wellbeing, national security, and health given the rapidly changing threat landscape. For example, Congress would leave critical preparedness programs—like the Strategic National Stockpile, medical supply chain resilience, and hospital preparedness programs—without clear direction and oversight.
The signatories of this letter are hopeful that PAHPA will remain a strong bipartisan legislative framework, as it has always been, and stand ready to assist in getting this important law reauthorized this year.
Related content
