Biden’s Big Dreams Meet the Limits of ‘Imperfect’ Tools

Some researchers had hoped that expanding access to care would reduce per-person health spending by providing preventive care for previously uninsured patients to help them avoid more expensive illness. Those hopes have not come to fruition, said Katherine Baicker, the dean of the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy, who studies the economics of health care. And as a result, costs have remained high for taxpayers.

“Policies that are designed to solve one problem,” like expanding health coverage, she said, “have to be realistic about the financing that goes along with it.”

Mr. Biden and Democrats made another attempt this month to rein in health costs, imposing limits on prescription drug spending through Medicare in a sweeping bill called the Inflation Reduction Act. That bill also includes the most ambitious effort by the federal government to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that are driving climate change: nearly $400 billion in spending and tax incentives meant to encourage the growth of wind and solar electricity, electric vehicles and other emissions-limiting technologies.

Those measures join a growing list of administration efforts to regulate emissions across the economy. But for several reasons, most notably the political difficulties of taxing consumers, the bill did not impose a tax on fossil fuels.

Many environmental economists have moved away from their long-held view that such taxes are the best way to reduce emissions. But most of them still say raising the price of fossil fuels, in hopes of discouraging their use, is an important complement to government subsidies of low-carbon fuels — part of a balanced diet, so to speak, that yields a faster, more efficient transition away from planet-warming oil, gas and coal.

The political perils of high gasoline prices all but assured Mr. Biden would not pursue a tax on fossil fuels. But White House officials have also grown increasingly bullish on the idea that regulations and subsidies are enough to meet his goal of cutting emissions 50 percent from 2005 levels by the end of the decade.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/27/us/politics/biden-student-loans.html