General Discussion

Cole Schmidtknecht died on January 21. Five days earlier would have been the first refill, assuming his plan year started 1/1. Drug prices change based on the new year's formulary. So it likely was just the annual formulary change, not an unpredictable change.

Both my spouse and my daughter rely on costly medication for chronic illnesses. November has been the traditional date of the new formulary. That gives us more than a month to switch to a different option (in cases where we had multiple plans to choose from) or to communicate with their doctors about alternatives which are on the new formulary, or about starting the process to get a formulary exception. We've had a couple of close calls where a prescription was running out within the last week of December or the first week of January, but we've made them work because we know we have to. (This includes periods when my daughter was the same age as Cole.

The blame ultimately lies on our crappy health care system, and lack of a safety net for situations like this one. But given that's what we have, self-protection can sometimes make the difference between life and death.