By the time the new Medicare Part D prescription plan was 10 days old, Maine had spent $3.6 million to fill more than 68,000 prescriptions for elderly and disabled patients who were shut out of the new plan because of computer and paperwork errors. At the time, which was the second week in January, the snafu was expected to cost Maine taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars each day.

It did. Maine picked up the tab and continues to pick up the tab for the woefully inadequate federal start-up to what was supposed to be an easy and low-cost national prescription plan.

Easy and low cost it is not. And the program is well beyond what could ever be considered a start-up phase, so the ongoing problems are inexcusable.

While not the $100,000 a day taxpayers had been paying for prescriptions in January, last week Maine spent $102,000 to buy prescription drugs for 2,300 people who are supposed to be covered under the federal plan but who, for whatever reason, still are not, and that’s nearly six months after Part D was launched. It’s a cost taxpayers should expect to continue paying each week, which – at some $5.3 million – is not anticipated in the state’s annual budget.

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to stand in the way of a law to require states to pay the federal government for some costs of administration for Medicare Part D. The law supposes that states will save money since Medicare Part D assumes some of Medicaid’s former responsibilities, and that savings should be passed on to the federal government.

Maine isn’t saving money. It’s spending millions to pick up the slack for the feds’ poor programming, and there is no justification for taxpayers to pay even more.

Maine, in its trust that the federal government will get this program on track, has recently billed the feds $7 million for costs it has incurred to date to pay for drugs. It doesn’t come close to the figure we’ve actually spent, but Jude Walsh of the Governor’s Office of Health Policy and Finance hopes it will be re-paid by the end of the month.

That money – when and if it is re-paid – will most likely be turned around and used to buy prescription drugs for more Mainers who would otherwise go without.

It can hardly be considered reimbursement if the money will be spent again for the same purpose.

Maine, which was the first state in the nation to recognize the paperwork debacle that was to become Medicare Part D, geared up to offer a safety net to consumers as soon as the prescription program went online. It anticipated that patients would find themselves without coverage as they switched plans. On Jan. 1, Walsh had the state’s checkbook ready to help, easing pain and saving lives.

California was quick to follow Maine, as were – eventually – about 40 other states as the federal government (once it realized the magnitude of the problem) promised re-payments through Feb. 15. While other states have since dropped their safety nets, Maine kept its in place because the administration just couldn’t bear the thought of sick and disabled Mainers going without prescriptions. The cost of that generosity has been high, millions more than the $3.9 million originally set aside for the task. It’s a figure that continues to rise and one that the federal government appears content to have Maine absorb. That’s unacceptable.

We’re not asking the federal government for much here, just a concerted effort to get the computer-based Medicare Part D program working so that Americans who are dying of cancer can get pain medication, and Americans who are suffering from heart disease and other chronic illnesses can fill life-extending prescriptions under what is supposed to be national prescription drug plan.