Joe Biden’s assault on the $900 child-eczema cream

BUYING PRESCRIPTION drugs in America can feel a bit like being a tourist haggling at a street market. First, a ludicrous “retail price” is mentioned (for your correspondent recently, $902 for eczema cream for a child). Then insurance is applied, followed by a layering-on of coupons (often printed by the pharmacist and then handed to themselves), discount cards and rebate claims. And yet even after all that, the amount of cash you pay out of pocket is still steep by international standards (the cream ended up costing $273).