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

BUYING PRESCRIPTION IRAdrugs 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).Americans agree on few things, but lowering the price they pay for medication is the most popular policy position in American politics, tied with support for Social Security. Nine in ten say this should be an important or top priority for Congress. In his state-of-the-union message Joe Biden spent a full three minutes on the topic. Yet only one in four say they are aware of his attempts through the Inflation Reduction Act () of 2022 to reduce prices. This is something he needs to rectify.