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Welcome to Friday’s Overnight Health Care, where we’re following the latest moves on policy and news affecting your health. Subscribe here: thehill.com/newsletter-signup.

The U.S. and much of the world was unprepared for how bad the coronavirus pandemic was. The next one could be worse, and nations don’t seem to be learning their lessons. 

The Supreme Court let the Texas abortion law stay in place, at least temporarily, in a move that has abortion rights advocates pessimistic about the future. But SCOTUS also gave abortion providers the right to file lawsuits challenging the law. 

For The Hill, we’re Peter Sullivan (psullivan@thehill.com), Nathaniel Weixel (nweixel@thehill.com) and Justine Coleman (jcoleman@thehill.com). Write to us with tips and feedback, and follow us on Twitter: @PeterSullivan4, @NateWeixel and @JustineColeman8.

Let’s get started.

SCOTUS allows abortion providers to sue

The Supreme Court on Friday left in place a restrictive Texas law that bans abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, but provided a narrow path for abortion providers to pursue a federal lawsuit challenging the law. 

The complex ruling did not deal directly with the ban’s legality. Rather, the justices determined that federal courts have the power to review their legal challenge against some of the named defendants.

In an 8-1 opinion by Justice Neil GorsuchNeil GorsuchSome good news in the battle to rebalance the courts Supreme Court denies last-minute reprieve of Oklahoma inmate’s execution Conservative justices appear open to religious claim in Maine school case MORE, the majority handed abortion providers a modest win whose practical impact was not immediately certain. Justice Clarence ThomasClarence ThomasNeil Gorsuch’s terrifying paragraph Roberts and Roe: The Supreme Court considers a narrow question on abortion Five revealing quotes from Supreme Court abortion case  MORE wrote separately that he would have dismissed the case. 

The ruling will allow the providers to return to a district court judge who once ruled against the law, calling it unconstitutional. But legal experts and abortion advocates said the ruling had given Texas a roadmap for blocking future lawsuits.

“Once again, the Supreme Court has abandoned the people of Texas,” said Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America said. Johnson accused the court of being “complicit in widespread chaos and harm to Texans” and “giving the green light for other states to circumvent the constitution through copycat laws.”

The majority’s ruling dismissed the abortion providers’ suits against Texas’s attorney general, as well as a number of state court judges and clerks and a private citizen. Gorsuch said it was a procedural ruling.

Legal challenges to the Texas law have been ensnared in thorny questions related to the law’s unique legislative design, which critics have likened to a “bounty” system.

What’s next: The court’s Friday decision brings the legal process back to square one, when the Supreme Court refused to step in and block the law on Sept. 1. It’s likely to return to the district court judge who initially blocked the law, whose…