A young man with severe asthma used to be able to get his inhaler for cheap, but after UnitedHealthcare's drug arm jacked up the price, he had to go without — and it ultimately killed him, his mother says.
As Madison, Wisconsin's WMTV reports, the parents of the late Cole Schmidtknecht are suing Walgreens OptumRX, UnitedHealth's pharmacy benefit manager (PBM), after it upped the price of his steroid inhaler from $66 to $539.
In their suit, Shanon and William Schmidtknect allege that Optum operates as part of a prescription drug "oligopoly" that controls nearly 80 percent of all prescriptions in the United States. Ultimately, the family argues, that oligopoly led to their son's death at just 22 years old last January.
As the Schmidtknects told WMTV previously, their son had had asthma since he was an infant, but the advent of Advair's preventative Diskus inhaler had been "life-changing" for managing his symptoms.
During the autumn prior to his death, the lawsuit explains, Optum changed its policies for the upcoming year and stopped carrying Advair Diskus or one of its generic alternatives, instead covering two newer and more expensive options. In doing so, the PBM was able to make more money.
"This practice of requiring patients to change their medications so that the PBM can collect kickbacks from the drug manufacturer is called 'non-medical switching,'" the suit expounds, "because the choice of medication is dictated by the PBM’s financial interests, not the best medical interests of
patients."
When the younger Schmidtknect went to get his inhaler at the beginning of 2024, he was informed of the price increase — 800 percent higher than its previous price — and essentially told the pharmacist to kick rocks.
"He walked out," Schmidtknect's father told WMTV last November. "Chose rent over his medicine."
Just a few days after refusing to pay for that expensive prescription, the 22-year-old had a severe asthma attack. Because he didn't have his inhaler, his parents say, it was fatal.
Initially, the young man's parents didn't know that his prescription had become that expensive — until his dad got the bill for his own, similar inhaler and saw the cost.
"Oh my gosh, this is what happened," Shannon Schmidtknecht recalled. "This is what happened to Cole."
Though the family had been outspoken about their son's death and its link to PBMs prior to the murder of UHC CEO Brian Thompson in December, the timing of their suit filing in the aftermath of that assassination — and the anger it unleashed at the insurance industry in response — is striking.
With the lawsuit, the grieving family is looking to draw attention to the alleged inequity promoted by these drug middlemen.
"It’s just this unknown creature out there that’s controlling care," William Schmidtknect told the local broadcaster last fall.
After the suit was filed earlier in the week, an OptumRx spokesperson — who asked for anonymity in the wake of Thompson's death — responded with a boilerplate message of condolences.
"Mr. Schmidtknecht’s death was tragic, and our thoughts are with his family," the spokesperson told WMTV. "The claims made are factually inaccurate."
More on UHC: UnitedHealthcare's New CEO Announcement Draws a Frenzy of Dark Humor
Share This Article