Washington ? Nearly 1 in 4 seniors say they sometimes don’t fill prescriptions because of their high cost or they skip doses to make their prescriptions last longer, according to a new eight-state survey of the effects of high drug prices on elderly Americans.

For those who skimp, the high cost of drugs “is more than a financial burden, it’s a health risk,” said Karen Davis, president of the Commonwealth Fund, a sponsor of the study. The findings, released Wednesday as the Senate rejected a plan to spend $390 billion over 10 years to help seniors pay for prescription drugs, illustrate the stress between the promise of drugs and their rising cost.

Overall, 22 percent of the nearly 11,000 Americans over 65 who were surveyed said they’d skimped on their prescribed drugs in 2001 to save money. The figure jumped to more than a third for seniors who didn’t have health insurance that covered some of the costs of their prescriptions.

That one-third included seniors with chronic and costly diseases, including diabetes and heart disease, for whom drug treatment is essential. Three in 10 seniors with high blood pressure and no drug coverage, for example, said they had skipped doses, and just less than that number said they hadn’t filled one or more of their prescriptions.

Failure to take the proper medication can have severe consequences and can lead to hospitalizations that add to the nation’s health care expenditures, said Joan Henneberry, director of health policy at the National Governors Assn. in Washington.

“This is an alarming picture, and it’s going to get worse,” said John Rother, policy director for the AARP, a national advocacy group for seniors.

The growing number of aging baby boomers will only deepen the problem unless a solution is found, Henneberry said. “If we’re not in a crisis already, we’re certainly heading toward one.”