PORTLAND - Douglas Schmidt, who went into a coma after his state-paid anti-seizure medications ran out earlier this year, died Tuesday after a judge rejected a request by family members to restart life support.

A court-appointed guardian, Nancy Doty, and family members had asked doctors to disconnect Schmidt's respirator and stop providing nutrients on Sunday.

But the 37-year-old, whose case had been taken up by critics of health care cutbacks because his medications had cost only $13 a day, began breathing weakly on his own.

He died Tuesday at about 8 a.m., Doty said.

"This has been an intensely painful and very, very personal time" for members of the family, who had disagreed Monday over whether to keep Schmidt alive by restoring life support, Doty said.

Schmidt's case gained national attention this spring while the Legislature reduced funding for the Oregon Health Plan, the state's public health program for the poor.

The plan had been considered among the most generous in the nation until recession-caused tax shortfalls forced lawmakers to cut services, including prescription drug benefits to thousands of low-income Oregonians.

Schmidt had been unconscious and brain-damaged since March 1, when he collapsed from a seizure. A month earlier, he ran out of his state-paid anti-seizure medication, Lamictal.

Doty said it is unfair to lay all the blame with state officials. She said others could have provided the medication, or encouraged a tapered withdrawal that might have carried lower risks of a seizure.

Schmidt's coma prevented him from swallowing or controlling his bowels and bladder. He also developed pneumonia, a drug-resistant infection and kidney failure that would have required dialysis.

Schmidt's mother, Sandra Wierzba of Murrieta, Calif., had supported the decision to withdraw life support.

But a day after the ventilator was switched off, Schmidt's sister, Stephenie Wight, asked Circuit Judge Katherine Tennyson for a restraining order to restart the ventilator. Tennyson declined the request.

"There was a very clear decision by the judge that the ventilator need not be restarted and she would not intervene," Doty said Tuesday.

Gov. Ted Kulongoski's office had said the governor would not intervene in the case.