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Democratic lawmakers, members of President Biden’s Cabinet, and allied organizers and activists are kicking off a multipronged public relations campaign aimed at ensuring voters understand — and appreciate the benefits of — the $700-billion climate-change and drug-prices bill that Biden signed Tuesday. (Stokol and Vega, 8/19)

The administration released state-by-state projections as it begins touting its signature climate and health care spending package, which Democrats in Congress passed last week and the president signed into law Tuesday. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said the health care measures alone will have profound impacts for millions of Americans struggling to keep up with soaring prescription drug costs. (Blackman, 8/18)

For consumers in California, $9 billion is available for home energy rebates and 10 years of tax credits for appliances that are energy efficient. To start lowering the ever-increasing smog levels in this public-transportation-poor state, the bill offers up to $4,000 in tax credits for used clean-energy vehicles for low- and middle-income individuals and families. (Yamamura, 8/18)

Still, Medicare’s authority to now negotiate drug prices is an “indictment” of PBMs, which are supposed to manage costs for Medicare Part D enrollees, said Antonio Ciaccia, president of 3 Axis Advisors. Government officials, "through their actions, are saying, ‘You guys, we’re cutting it, and we can do better.' So from a PBM perspective, I think that this, in some ways, undercuts their value,” he said. (Berryman, 8/18)

As the calendar pushed closer to the Nov. 1 open enrollment date, Sara Cariano was growing nervous about her work helping people across Virginia sign up for subsidized, private health insurance on the HealthCare.gov website. “I expected very difficult conversation with folks to explain why their premiums were spiking,” said Cariano, a policy specialist at the Virginia Poverty Law Center. But the passage of the “Inflation Reduction Act” erased those worries. (Seitz, 8/19)

But not everyone will feel the benefits of the new bill equally, analysts and advocates warn. People living in neighborhoods that are already dealing with a lot of pollution fear they will face more harm and climate risk, not less. And that could deepen existing environmental inequalities and lock in decades of unnecessary illness and suffering for people who are already marginalized. (Hersher, 8/17)

KHN: KHN’s ‘What The Health?’: Wrapping Up Summer’s Health News 

Congress and President Joe Biden are officially on summer vacation, but they left behind a lot of health policy achievements. The president returned this week from his South Carolina beach retreat to sign the Inflation Reduction Act, which, among other things, allows Medicare to negotiate drug prices for the first time. (8/18)