The state of Pennsylvania's controversial program to provide financial incentives to families of organ donors has only paid out the $300 food-and-lodging benefit to 19 applicants since the program was initiated in January.

And while the idea of an incentive program was originally approved as a way of increasing the number of cadaver donors, only one of the applications thus far has come from the family of a deceased donor.

The other applications for the benefit have all involved living-donor transplants, which presumably would have occurred whether or not the incentive existed.

"It won't achieve what we wanted it to achieve," said Howard M. Nathan, president of the Gift of Life Donor Program, the organ procurement agency seeking to increase cadaver organ donation in eastern Pennsylvania, South Jersey and Delaware.

While the financial incentive program is the only one of its kind in the United States, it is a far diminished version of the plan to pay up to $3,000 toward funeral expenses of a deceased donor that then Gov. Bob Casey -- himself a transplant recipient -- signed into law in 1994.

While backers felt that the death benefit, which was to paid directly to funeral homes, might increase the number of cadaver donors, the state after considerable agonizing retreated from trying the plan, fearful that it might violate a federal law making it illegal to sell or trade an organ.

State Rep. Bill Robinson, sponsor of the original bill, holds out little hope that the current plan will have any significant impact on cadaver donation, terming the offer of $300 food-and-lodging money to next-of-kin an "insult" to potential donor families in their moment of grief.

"That was not my intent or the legislative intent," Robinson said. "I dare say that food or a hotel room is not the major concern that families have" after a death.

Other sources: State of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia Inquirer