WASHINGTON – The Bush administration has rejected a plan by Michigan and Vermont to jointly negotiate lower prescription drug prices from pharmaceutical companies, Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm said Monday.

The two states were the first to pool their resources for buying drugs under the state-federal Medicaid program providing health care to the poor. Michigan has said the pool purchases would save the state millions of dollars. Other states, including New Hampshire, were considering joining.

Granholm, a Democrat, said she was told late Friday that the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services was rejecting the program as a violation of federal procurement procedures. She said she was waiting for an official rejection letter from the agency before deciding the state’s next step.

But Mary Kahn, a spokeswoman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said Monday morning there has been no official response from the agency and that the program is still under review.

Michigan Department of Community Health spokesman T.J. Bucholz said the federal government’s decision immediately dissolves the partnership. Michigan and Vermont also won’t get rebates they were owed by drug companies under the program, Bucholz said.

In Maine, Trish Riley, head of the Governor’s Office of Health Policy and Finance, said there’s no indication that any of Maine’s discount drug programs are in trouble. “It’s the interstate stuff that makes them nervous,” Riley said, referring to the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Because Vermont and Michigan teamed up to create greater buying power, Riley said, interstate commerce and antitrust laws might be called in to debate. MaineCare, Maine’s Medicaid program, has a preferred drug list for companies that provide discount prices and rebates, but Riley said there’s been no sign of federal interest in derailing the program.

Granholm, who is attending the National Governors Association meeting in Washington, said she was surprised by the decision because the Bush administration has encouraged states to cut drug costs.

“We are just enormously frustrated at the lack of partnership Washington has been providing,” she said. “Some have suggested that it is because of this administration’s closeness to [pharmaceutical companies] that there is a desire not to allow these kinds of collaborative, market-power arrangements.”