Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) is frustrated with Republican colleagues who are not more outraged about the alleged “bombshell” of $105 billion in mandatory spending included in the health care law. “This is something that wasn’t known,” Bachmann said on Meet The Press on Sunday. “This money was broken up, hidden in various parts of the bill.” This afternoon, during an appearance on Sean Hannity’s radio show, Bachmann expressed disappointment that Republicans in Congress were failing to heed her alarm:

BACHMANN: I have to say I feel disheartened in that I’m not sensing a lot of outrage about this by other members or…hopefully they just don’t yet know or they just don’t yet realize because the marvelous opportunity we have is within the next week and a half we can get this funding back for Obamacare and effectively repeal it for the next two years if we get this money back, but we got to demand that we put the language in, that we’ve already written, on the next continuing resolution….we can do this, but I’m not sensing yet within the Republicans here in Congress a willingness to do that. It’s inexplicable to me…It’s like we’re in the Twilight zone here. I’m thinking, am I the only one who remembers there was no discussion of this $105 billion?

Listen:

Republicans may be less than surprised about Bachmann’s ‘revelations’ because the mandatory spending was, in fact, openly discussed in the various Congressional Budget Office estimates of health care reform and by Democrats hoping to protect the law from defunding. For instance, this CBO estimate from December 19, 2009 addressed the effects of “mandatory appropriations” for the Prevention and Public Health Fund,” “community health centers” and “the National Health Service Corps.” In an earlier document from November 2009, CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf writes, “For example, the House bill would finance the operations of the insurance exchanges through mandatory appropriations rather than a surcharge on the plans offered in the exchanges. ” (The word “mandatory” is used throughout this CBO compilation of health care related documents).

As Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) explained to Hannity after Bachmann’s appearance, “with the advanced appropriations they built in there, it exists outside the normal appropriations process, but tell me something I don’t know.” “I don’t think nobody noticed it, I thought most of the estimates we were working off of were….all of our estimates were over the next 10 years,” he added.

In February, Republicans on the House Rules Committee refused to grant a waiver, requested by Rep. Steve King (R-IA), “for the consideration of an amendment to the 2011 funding bill that would bar mandatory spending” for the health law. House rules stipulate that “members cannot legislate on appropriations bills,” which King’s amendment would have done by eliminating $105 billion in mandatory spending from the health law. Republicans on the committee argued that the party would be better served by focusing on the $100 billion in cuts offered in the GOP’s continuing resolution proposal and suggested that King’s amendment would be dead on arrival in the Senate and would therefore jeopardize the party’s cherished spending cuts.

After initially describing the Affordable Care Act as a one-size-fits-all government take over, Republicans are now criticizing HHS for granting temporary waivers to companies and states that may have trouble complying with the new regulations in the law (that would require plans to eliminate annual spending limits and meet medical loss ratio standards). Republicans have gone so far as to accuse the Secretary of cronyism in selecting the waiver recipients, claiming — without presenting a shred of evidence — that she granted a disproportionate number of waivers to unions. Here is Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) pressing the case this morning on the Senate floor:

BARRASSO: Last Friday night, the Secretary of Health and Human Services granted another 150 waivers. Another 150 waivers. Now there are over 1,040 waivers covering 2.6 million individuals…Well, of those 2.6 million who have received waivers, Madam President, 1.2 million are members of unions. So that’s 46 percent of the waivers have been given to union members. Now, the website were you go to for that information, of course, the Secretary has tried to disguise how they label those individuals and union plans are now called “multi-employer plans.”

Watch it:

Two million individuals represents a relatively small percentage of American workers, but even so, the ever expanding list of waivers would lead one to dismiss the argument that the agency is a top-down ideologically driven institution that’s interested in imposing its own version of health reform on employers and states regardless of consequences. Quite the opposite. In heeding the concerns of employers and giving plans more time to adjust to the new regulations and limit any coverage disruption, HHS is displaying a degree of flexibility that’s necessary in any mass scale implementation.

It’s also difficult to argue that the Secretary is “disguising” the waivers given to unions. If you click over to this page of approved waivers, it says:

Collectively-Bargained Employer-Based Plan Applicants: Most of the other health plans receiving waivers are multi-employer health funds created by a collective bargaining agreement between a union and two or more employers, pursuant to the Taft-Hartley Act. These “union plans” are employment based group health plans and operate for the sole benefit of workers. They tend to be larger than other typical group health plans because they cover multiple employers. There are also single-employer union plans that have received a waiver. In total, 182 collectively-bargained plans have received waivers.

“Union plan” is slightly inaccurate, however, since the plans are actually governed by a board on which employers and unions are equally represented. Moreover, unlike non-union labor negotiations which can be re-negotiated annually, collective bargaining agreements tie unions down for multiple years and the waivers, I suspect, are being granted to give them more time to change their plans and adjust to the new requirements. It’s the kind of flexibility Republicans supported during the health debate, but are now against.

Fox and Friends ran another segment this morning accusing HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius of admitting to “double counting” Medicare savings from the Affordable Care Act by saying that the $500 billion in cuts would extend the life of the Medicare Trust Fund and reduce the deficit. Republicans have made this argument even before ACA became law and Sebelius’ rather tumultuous appearance last week before the House Energy and Commerce Committee provided critics with another opportunity to reignite the debate:

REP. JOHN SHIMKUS: What’s the $500 billion cut for? Preserving Medicare or funding health care? Which one?

SEBELIUS: Both.

SHIMKUS: So you’re double counting.

Watch it:

What Shimkus calls “double counting” is actually the “unified budget process,” which is the way Congress keeps track of its dollars. Here is how it works: the $500 billion dollars (which comes in over a period of 10 years) is credited to the Medicare trust fund, which receives a treasury security worth that amount that will be paid out in interest when necessary. The actual $500 billion, however, will remain in the general fund of the federal treasury and is counted towards deficit reduction. If the trust fund cashes in its bond (and uses it to extend the life of Medicare), then that money is transferred from the general treasury to the Fund. However, since the same $500 billion cannot be used to reduce the deficit and extend the life of the trust fund, treasury would have to find that money somewhere else. But, given the principles of unified accounting and trust fund accounting, that money is said to reduce the deficit and extend the life of the fund.

The federal government has used this kind of system from time immemorial and Republicans have long argued that cutting Medicare is necessary for deficit reduction AND strengthening the program. Consider this 1997 press release from the Senate Republican Policy Committee making this very same case about the Balanced Budget Act:

- Getting to a Zero Deficit: This legislation is necessary despite continued improvement in the federal deficit. Without the federal policy changes contained in the reconciliation bill, the deficit under CBO’s most recent estimates (without the so-called fiscal dividend that balance will yield) would double to $139 billion by 2002. The deficit was $107 billion in FY 1996 and is currently projected to be $67 billion this year. However, without this legislation, it will not get to zero. The positive economic performance to date largely has been due to low inflation and business restructuring at home and the opening of new markets overseas that has resulted in higher-than-anticipated receipts.

- Medicare: The Balanced Budget Act of 1997 (BBA 97) makes the most significant changes to the Medicare program — the federal government’s health care program for all seniors — since its inception in the 1960s. It modernizes the program by granting new health care options for seniors — while maintaining and strengthening the traditional system. Further, it more equitably distributes federal managed care and new Medicare Choice payments between geographic regions. It also extends the life of the program’s funding mechanism, the Medicare trust fund (known as the HI or Part A trust fund).

Read the full release here.

ThinkProgress intern Kevin Donohoe contributed research to this post.