New projections released by the White House tout how clean energy tax credits and deductions, insulin restrictions and prescription drug price reform included in the Inflation Reduction Act will lower costs for Nevadans.
President Joe Biden signed climate, health care and tax legislation on Tuesday. Various provisions of the bill will begin to take effect in 2023, while others will not take effect for several more years.
The White House recently released a state-by-state fact sheet on some of the climate and health impacts.
Climate provisions within the bill include $370 billion for clean energy programs$15 billion for the Environmental Protection Agency to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and $4.5 billion for Western drought preparedness and response.
The legislation also provides rebates for households to make repairs and improvements to increase energy efficiency, tax credits covering 30% of the costs of community solar projects with bonus credits for affordable housing properties and projects in low-income communities. , and tax credits ranging from $4,000. to $7,500 on the purchase of electric vehicles, beginning January 1, 2023.
The White House estimates that the solar installation credits could lead to “an additional 75,000 Nevada households” installing rooftop panels.
The bill also includes grants for state and local governments to adopt building energy codes, a move the White House says could help the average new homeowner in Nevada save $181 a year.
The tax credits, the administration said, will lower energy costs and “make it more affordable for Nevada families to buy energy-efficient appliances when they need to make repairs around their homes and save money on their utility bills.” every month”.
About 32,000 Nevadans are employed in clean energy jobs, and the legislation is expected to bring $2.7 billion in “investments in large-scale clean energy generation and storage in Nevada between now and 2030,” according to the House fact sheet White.
The package also brings long-sought reforms to health care and prescription drug pricing.
More than 22,000 people on Medicare in Nevada are expected to see their insulin copayment drop to $35 starting in 2023.
Sarah Gleich, executive director of the Nevada Diabetes Association, noted reports of people rationing insulin until payday in order to pay rent or car payments, and even dying because they couldn’t afford the medication.
“For a person who is insulin dependent, you think about insulin every day,” she said. “The struggle is that it’s hard to collect and if something happens, it’s the difference between living on a glass or food for the month. Insulin costs so much and is so important.”
A provision to limit insulin copayments for private insurance was dropped from the package after failing to garner enough Republican support. Some Democrats are considering introducing a stand-alone bill on insulin costs in the Senate.
“It cost under 25 cents to make a vial of non-designer rDNA insulin,” Gleich said. “Pharma says they are insurance companies and they are middlemen. Insurance says it is research and development by Pharma. They are both wrong. Insulin should be something you can just pick up at the store like an aspirin. No insurance company required. It was so simple in the 90s and before.”
The bill caps out-of-pocket costs for Medicare prescription drugs at $2,000 a year starting in 2025 and allows the federal government to negotiate some of the more expensive prescription drugs starting in 2026.
And starting in 2023, the legislation “will require $0 cost-sharing for vaccines for Medicare Part D beneficiaries,” according to the White House fact sheet. “About 28,000 Nevada Medicare beneficiaries received a Part D vaccine in 2020, and that number is likely to increase as those vaccines become more affordable.”