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Passages

(3,305 posts)
Thu Jul 10, 2025, 12:31 PM Jul 10

Can One Angry Dad Fix The Drug Industry? [View all]

Bil Schmidtknecht blames pharmacy benefit managers for the death of his son. He won’t rest until he holds them accountable.


Helen Santoro


Bil Schmidtknecht stares into his smartphone camera with a furrowed brow, eyes squinted, choosing his words carefully. He posts these videos almost every day, sometimes multiple times a day, across different platforms, but each video starts the same way:

“Angry Dad here.”

In one video, Schmidtknecht films himself walking through a Wisconsin airport after meeting with lawmakers in Washington, D.C. Bil’s been filming himself and using the name Angry Dad ever since he lost his 22-year-old son Cole on a frigid winter night a year and a half ago, when Cole’s throat locked up so tightly that emergency personnel struggled to intubate him. Since he realized his son’s death wasn’t a random accident — that there was someone to blame.

“Angry Dad here.”

In another video filmed in a sunny parking lot outside of a small pharmacy, Bil’s holding what was a matter of life and death for his son: An asthma inhaler — the same one that Cole didn’t have when everything went wrong.

“Angry Dad here.”

In yet another video, Bil’s standing outside an office building in Minnesota, wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap. The concrete structure behind him is large but unassuming, one that thousands of people pass by every day without a second thought. Inside are the people that Bil blames for Cole’s death, the people he’s made it his life’s mission to stop.


https://www.levernews.com/can-one-angry-dad-fix-the-drug-industry/

A great father and determined despite the odds.

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