U.S. Rep. Peter Roskam said the health care bill rammed through Congress by Nancy Pelosi and her supporters will devastate business expenses and cause unemployment to rise even higher.

The new bill will drive up the costs of health insurance because it will force Americans to purchase health insurance that requires new mandates for coverage. Two of Illinois' largest companies announced this week the bill, which will besigned into law this week, will force them to spend a combined $250 million extra on health care costs this year. Caterpillar executives said the company will have to spend $100 million and John Deere announced the bill will cost them $150 million.

"When two pillars of the Illinois business community,Caterpillar and John Deere, are forced to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in new costs for next year alone thanks to the health bill, it sends an ominous message about Illinois' economic future," said Roskam, a DuPage Republican. "Unfortunately, and despite consistent and massive public opposition to it, this bill is now law. John Deere will not be the last company to announce crushing new costs as a result of this health care takeover."

At 11 percent Illinois has one of the highest rates of unemployment in the nation. The new mandates in the health care bill will cause evevn higher unemployment because of the costs thrown upon the shoulders of large and small businesses. Obamacare requires the federal government to levy a new $52 billion tax on small businesses. The bill begins a new $2,000 tax on small business with over 50 employees. Over 21,600 small businesses in Illinois could be subject to this new tax. This tax applies to part-time as well as full-time workers. Both Americans for Tax Reform and the Heritage Foundation estimated that the new taxes and Medicare cuts in the bill would cost over 600,000 job opportunities per year or an estimated 26,042 fewer Illinois jobs.

U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk, the Republican nominee for Senate, said the bill "deepens the debt" of future generations. Kirk sad he hopes a Republican victory in November will allow more modest reforms, such as The Medical Rights Act he proposed, to replace the most egregious parts of Obamacare.

Democrats will have vastly expanded the responsibilities of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and fundamentally altered the relationship between the IRS and taxpayers.

Specifically, the Individual Mandate Tax (IMT) in the Democrats’ health care legislation make the IRS the chief enforcer for a new government-run health insurance system. One of the most troubling aspects of this new IRS authority is the newly granted power to collect additional taxes from Americans whose health insurance coverage is deemed to be insufficient to meet the definition of minimum coverage, as defined by federal bureaucrats, required to be purchased. Disturbingly, the IRS would be in charge of verifying that every American taxpayer has obtained acceptable health coverage for every month of the year. If the IRS determines that a taxpayer lacks acceptable insurance for even a single month, then the IRS would impose a new tax on that taxpayer, even auditing the taxpayer and could assess interest and penalties on top of the tax.

This is an unprecedented new role for the IRS – one that will inject the IRS even further into the lives of American families.

1. IRS agents verify if you have “acceptable” health care coverage
2. IRS has the authority to fine you up to $2,250 or 2 percent of your income (whichever is greater) for failure to prove that you have purchased “minimum essential coverage”
3. IRS can confiscate your tax refund
4. IRS audits are likely to increase
5. IRS will need up to $10 billion to administer the new health care program this decade
6. IRS may need to hire as many as 16,500 additional auditors, agents and other employees to investigate and collect billions in new taxes from Americans
7. Nearly half of all these new individual mandate taxes will be paid by Americans earning less than 300 percent of poverty ($66,150 for a family of four). ***SPECIAL EXEMPTION*** Democrats prohibit the IRS from imposing these taxes and penalties on illegal immigrants.

Much of the opposition to the Democrats’ massive health care overhaul plan has focused on its large tax increases, steep Medicare cuts, and dangerous interference in the doctor-patient relationship. Far less attention has been paid to Democrats’ plans to grant massive new powers to the IRS, backed up by billions of dollars in additional taxpayer fund for the hiring of thousands of new IRS agents, examiners, and other personnel.

For the full report of the Republican House Ways and Means analysis go to: http://republicans.waysandmeans.house.gov/UploadedFiles/IRS_Power_Report.pdf