“When 22-year-old Cole Schmidtknecht tried to get a refill on the inhaler prescribed by his doctor to prevent asthma attacks, the medication that had formerly cost him less than $70 at his Appleton, Wis., pharmacy was now priced at more than $500, according to Cole’s father, Bil Schmidtknecht,” Jason Kane, Anne Thompson and Linda Carroll write for CBS News. “Stunned, Cole left the store with a medication designed to stop asthma attacks once they start, but without the Advair Diskus inhaler he needed to prevent attacks from happening in the first place. Five days after his pharmacy visit last year, Cole had a severe asthma attack, stopped breathing and collapsed. He never regained consciousness and died. Doctors attributed his death to asthma. His parents, Bil and Shanon Schmidtknecht, blame what they say is a dysfunctional system where medications can change in price overnight and without notice…. The Schmidtknechts are pushing for legislation that would require a 90-day warning when an insurance company’s formulary is changed. They are also suing Optum Rx, the pharmacy benefit manager that took Cole’s Advair Diskus off his insurance company’s formulary, and Walgreens, his pharmacy, which, the Schmidtknechts say, didn’t offer Cole a way to control his asthma while another solution could be found.” Jason Kane, Anne Thompson and Linda Carroll, “He couldn’t afford his inhaler, and died. His parents are suing his insurer,” CBS News.
