My wife would like to try some new medicine. But we can’t afford the $500 a month it costs.

It is called Voquezna and actually is even more expensive than $500 — the average retail price without insurance is around $1,012 for a 30-day supply of 20 mg. tablets.

With a discount card, we might be able to knock it down to a little under $200 a month, or about $7 a pill.

Why do new drugs cost so much?

Well, if you spend more than $800 million to develop a drug and then must wait 10-12 years waiting for government approval before you can earn any money from it, the price isn’t going to be cheap. After it is approved, the manufacturer can sell it exclusively for up to 20 years and try to recover his costs and make a profit in that time.

Eye on Jacksonville contributor Dr. James O’Leary has written in detail about the problem and mentioned other factors sch as third-party Pharmacy Benefit Managers.

The actual cost of a new drug is about $179 million, but companies also have to recoup the costs of drugs that fail to gain approval. In big companies, that total cost can average $2.2 billion.

As they say, it is what it is.

Politicians don’t have any viable answers. Hillarycare, Obamacare and other forms of socialized medicine are smoke and mirrors. They don’t lessen the costs; they just move them around.

People who are working and have group insurance can get drugs cheaper, but retired people on fixed income get whacked. What sense does that make?

Critics argue the current system means Americans are essentially subsidizing cheap drugs for the rest of the world by selling drugs at lower cost to countries that negotiate prices.

In short, the system is not working as it should. However, it does not appear to be a market failure, but the result of clumsy government attempts to “fix” the system.

Fixing it is beyond my pay grade. All I know is my wife probably won’t be getting the new medicine that might help her feel better.