Most of us know someone who has been impacted or touched by unemployment over the past year, whether it is a family member who was laid off, a son or daughter looking for employment after college, or a community of families impacted by a plant or mill closure. Today, the Administration announced that the unemployment rate hit 10.2% in October, the highest rate of unemployment since April of 1983. 190,000 jobs were lost in October alone.

And despite this news, the House majority leadership is still trying to push through a nearly 2,000 page healthcare bill that will kill an additional 5.5 million jobs, according to a methodology developed by senior economists at the White House. Burdensome regulations on small businesses created through the healthcare bill will result in employers’ inability to pay salaries or hire new workers, and result in layoffs.

Here are some of the job-killing provisions included in the bill:

• Imposes an 8% payroll tax on employers who can't afford to offer coverage to employees, or on employers who offer coverage that is deemed "insufficient" by the government.
• Establishes a new tax on every health insurance policy to fund government research used to ration care.
• Allows small businesses to receive subsidies for healthcare costs, provided employee income is lower than $20,000, creating a perverse incentive to keep wages low and not hire new workers.

You can read additional information about how this bill will destroy jobs here.

In addition, the government-takeover of healthcare will grow our deficit and increase the number of federal bureaucracies, while increasing taxes, stifling small-business growth, and ultimately preventing job creation.

Rising healthcare costs is a significant issue that must be addressed. But, there are better solutions to healthcare reform than the job-killing bill currently before Congress. You can read about some of my healthcare solutions here.