Cole should have turned 24 this year. His parents should have been celebrating with him, maybe having cake, maybe just laughing about something small. Instead, they’re left marking the day with memories. Two years on, they’re still asking the same question: how did a young man with insurance end up dying from a preventable asthma attack?
Cole had a job. He had health coverage through his employer in Wisconsin. He also had asthma, a condition he managed with daily medication. That management relied on a specific inhaler, one he thought would be covered like it always had been.
But when he went to the pharmacy to get a refill, he was told it would now cost over $500. The preventive inhaler that had once cost around $67 had suddenly become out of reach. The reason? OptumRx, the pharmacy benefit manager, had removed it from their list of covered drugs. His doctor wasn’t notified. He wasn’t given a proper warning. According to his parents, no one offered a proper alternative.
He walked away with just an emergency inhaler, the kind meant for last-minute attacks, not day-to-day control. Days later, that inhaler was found empty next to his bed. He’d died of a severe asthma attack alone in his room.
The pharmaceutical company behind the decision says $5 copays were technically available, and that instructions were sent to Walgreens to contact Cole. Walgreens has expressed condolences but hasn’t shared details, citing privacy. His parents say none of that information ever reached their son.
They didn’t even know he was struggling with access until they got to the ICU and heard it from his roommate. There’d been no warning signs, no clue anything was wrong. Just one missing refill that changed everything.
Cole’s story now sits at the centre of a broader investigation, part of NBC’s “The Cost of Denial” series. It highlights a grim truth: insurance doesn’t always mean protection. When a covered drug is removed, even temporarily, it can leave patients stranded without real-time solutions. For Cole, there was no buffer. No one stepped in. No safety net caught him.
His parents have since had his tattoo inked onto their own wrists. It's a quiet reminder, one that carries a simple message: keep going. Remember, live. But underneath that is something heavier. A frustration that hasn’t faded, and a grief shaped not just by loss but by the knowledge that it didn’t have to happen.
This wasn’t about neglect or recklessness. It was about a young man doing the right thing, playing by the rules, only to be let down by a system that shifted the goalposts without telling him.
And that’s what stays with you. Not just the loss, but the silence around it.
