Trump,who has often bucked the traditional free marketorthodoxy that the GOP has promoted, said as a candidate that hewould use the power of the government to reduce drug costs. (Photo:Bloomberg)

Conservatives are worried about President Trump’s proposals toreduce the cost of prescription drugs.

The Trump administration is supporting a bill that would limitprice increases for drugs in the Medicare Part D program, forcingdrug-makers to reimburse the government if their price rises fasterthan inflation. However, the bill has drawn pushback from Republicans andconservative advocacy groups, who fear the president is adoptingliberal ideas.

A website set up by the American Conservative Union urgessupporters to reject what it describes as liberal, big governmentpolicies. The site decries Trump’s proposal as “directly out of theBernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton government health care takeoverplaybook.”

Related: Trump administration says new health care plancoming soon

Conservative group FreedomWorks has also run online ads warningof “socialist-style price controls.”

Trump, who ran a populist campaign that in many ways bucked thetraditional free market orthodoxy that the GOP has promoted, saidas a candidate that he would use the power of the government toreduce drug costs. He accused pharmaceutical companies of “gettingaway with murder.”

Thus far, however, the Trump administration has not implementedany significant regulations to control drug costs. In July, theadministration abandoned a proposal aimed at encouragingpharmaceutical companies to give discounts to consumers, ratherthan pharmacy benefit managers.

Last month Trump also promised to write an executive order toset the price that Medicare pays for drugs to whatever the price ofthat drug is in the lowest-cost country. However, there has been nofollow-up on those comments since, and experts expressed skepticismthat the president could accomplish what he promised.

On a much smaller scale, the administration is currentlydrafting a Medicare pilot program focused on a small group ofdrugs. In the pilot, Medicare would pay based on an internationalprice index that includes a dozen other industrializedcountries.

“It’s a very interesting dynamic, in that the Republican Party,from a philosophical standpoint, has generally favored freemarkets,” Katie Mahoney, the vice president for health policy atthe U.S. Chamber of Commerce, told Stat News last month. “So it issomewhat strange that a conservative administration is putting outproposals that seem to have a tinge of socialist background.”

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• 5 things senators are hearing about drugprices
• New bipartisan bill targets drug prices–andMylan