Posted At Herald-Review

BY : Lisa Girion

Gov. Rod Blagojevich's controversial plan to help Illinois residents buy prescription drugs from foreign pharmacies has failed to draw huge numbers of participants.

But on the first anniversary of the I-SaveRx program, the governor still claims it is a success. "Generally speaking, I-SaveRx is working the way it was intended to work," the governor's spokesperson said. "The people who have signed up are realizing significant savings on the medications they need to stay healthy. They know that the prescription drugs that they got through the program are the same that they would be getting at their corner pharmacy."

But the actual numbers tell a little different story. The program is available to about 27 million people in five states. They can access the program though a Web site, which hooks them up with a Canadian pharmaceutical clearinghouse that handles orders from pharmacies in Canada and the United Kingdom.

For a variety of reasons, prescription drugs are often cheaper in foreign countries. The federal Food and Drug Administration objects to the practice of importing pharmaceuticals from foreign counties because it cannot guarantee the safety of drugs from overseas.

The Blagojevich administration decided to ignore those objections and launched I-SaveRx anyway.

But in its first year, only 14,000 prescriptions have been ordered. That's a small number. In fact, it's really small, given the number of people who could use the system and the effort the state has put into promoting it.

The Blagojevich administration is correct in stating that one reason for the low numbers is that Illinois residents have lots of other options when it comes to ordering prescription drugs from foreign countries. Many private enterprises have gotten into the business of delivering overseas prescriptions. It also doesn't help that the federal government objects to the practice of importing prescription drugs.

As we stated before, this was a bad idea from the start. The state should not be involved in what amounts to a private business function.

The governor has been successful in one way with this program: He has raised awareness of the issue of high prescription drug costs.

But the state's response to the lack of interest in I-SaveRx isn't to let the program slowly fade into the background. Instead, the governor's office said it plans to do more outreach. "We'd like it to be bigger, and that's why we've stepped up our outreach efforts in recent months," the governor's spokeswoman said.