Note: “An Arm and a Leg” uses speech-recognition software to generate transcripts, which may contain errors. Please use the transcript as a tool but check the corresponding audio before quoting the podcast.
DAN: Hey there,
We are working on some big projects this summer. So this week we’re bringing back a story from last year — actually a series, condensed into one special episode. Here we go.
A while ago, I heard a story that I just couldn’t shake. It was about a guy named Cole Schmidtknecht.
In 2024, Cole went to a Walgreens in Appleton, Wisconsin, where he lived, to refill the medication he used to control his asthma. He’d been taking it for years, and he expected to pay about seventy bucks.
But — according to a lawsuit filed by Cole’s family — the pharmacy told him his insurance no longer covered the medicine. The price for him was going to be more than $500.
He didn’t have it. So he left without his medicine.
A few days later, he had a severe asthma attack. After days on life support, he died. He was 22 years old.
And of course, Cole is far from the only person to go without medicine because of the price tag.
In a recent survey, …