The parents of a 22-year-old who lost his life due to asthma are suing a pharmacy for the tragedy after the prices of inhalers were significantly increased.
The man was identified as Cole Schmidtknecht, who reportedly tried to buy a refill on his inhaler, which was prescribed by his doctor to prevent asthma attacks. His previous purchases for the product cost him $70 but the most recent time he tried to buy one, the price skyrocketed to more than $500.
Lawsuit Against Pharmacy for Inhaler Price Hike
The 22-year-old then left the store with only a medication that was designed to stop asthma attacks after they started. However, he was not able to buy the Advair Diskus inhaler, which is needed to prevent asthma attacks before they even begin.
After Schmidtknecht's pharmacy visit last year, he had a severe asthma attack five days later where he stopped breathing and just collapsed. It was reported that the 22-year-old never regained consciousness and was later pronounced dead as doctors attributed his death to asthma, according to NBC News.
His parents are now blaming what they describe as a dysfunctional system that does not control the prices of medications and lets them change overnight without notice. One thing to note is that a part of the insurance system that a lot of people are unaware of was actually responsible for the spike in the prices of inhalers.
So-called Pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) are the middlemen who are responsible for controlling which drugs will be on an insurance company's list of covered medications. They can choose to add or remove medications through a process that prioritizes profits for the company.
A professor of health policy and management at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, Gerard Anderson, said PBMs typically look for drugs that make them the most profits, Yahoo News reported.
Asthma-Related Death
Bil Schmidtknecht said that he could not believe that something like this was happening in America, noting that it is not broken because it was designed this way because of money. The family is now pushing for legislation that would mandate a 90-day warning when an insurance company's formulary is changed.
They also filed a lawsuit against Optum Rx and Walgreens pharmacy for their alleged negligence and unspecified damages after their son's death. The lawsuit claims that Optum Rx did not notify the Schmidtknechts that the medication was no longer covered by the company's insurance.
Additionally, lawyers for the plaintiff argued that the 22-year-old was not given sufficient time to request an exception to the new guideline that drove the price of his medication through the roof, as per People.
