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As if the stubbornly high unemployment rate and rising costs of gasoline and  food weren’t enough, yesterday marked the third anniversary of another direct  assault on America’s working families. It was this time in 2010 that President  Obama’s singular first-term legislative “accomplishment” was passed, and  Obamacare became law. Now three years later, implementation of the law threatens  American families with massive premium rate hikes and devastating job  losses.

The president said he would lower insurance costs for consumers, but the  opposite is happening. Health insurers are projecting Obamacare will increase  the cost of coverage by 20-100 percent next January when the law really starts  to kick in. Yes, that’s right: For some people, health-care costs will double.  The CEO of Aetna went as far as to say the price hikes would cause “premium rate  shock.”

Obamacare imposes $700 billion in new taxes over 10 years. One stark example  of this heavy tax burden is the health insurance excise tax. The National  Federation of Independent Business estimates this tax will increase the cost of  family coverage $5,000 by 2020 and is working hard to repeal it.

In addition to the tax burden, Americans will have to pay the heavy price of  government interference. One of the touted benefits of the law is it provides  coverage for those with pre-existing conditions. However, it does this by  guaranteeing coverage and by making healthy customers pay as much as those who  are sick. This creates an incentive for people to stop paying for insurance  until they get sick, which will ultimately raise the cost for everyone. Can you  imagine what house insurance would cost if you could wait until your home burned  before buying a policy?

The “individual mandate” was supposed to solve this problem, but the penalty  was set far below the cost of actually paying for insurance. So the destructive  incentive remains, and we get the worst of both worlds – exploding cost  increases and a new tax on Americans.

It’s not just rising costs Americans face – Obamacare is beginning to cost  jobs, too. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, Obamacare  will result in an estimated 800,000 fewer U.S. jobs.

Across the country business owners are experiencing Obamacare’s effects  firsthand. The employer mandate and penalties apply to businesses with 50 or  more full-time workers. Therefore, companies are figuring out ways to get by  with more part-time and contract workers. The owner of Automation Systems Inc.,  an Illinois company with 37 employees, says he wants to hire more people but  can’t because once the business crosses the 50-employee threshold, it will have  to pay $40,000 in penalties, plus $2,000 for each additional employee.

This affects an area where we can least afford to lose jobs: manufacturing.  Of America’s 250,000 manufacturers, about 200,000 had fewer than 20 employees in  2010. These are companies that could grow and form the core of many small towns  and communities in America. But they likely won’t be able to under this law. We  cannot afford to let that happen. Rising costs and job loss are the last thing  America needs right now.

Instead, we need policies that help Americans keep more of their hard-earned  money. We need to help relieve their tax burdens by expanding child tax credits  and to promote health care they can own and control by raising health savings  account contribution limits. We need to increase affordability for struggling  families with a refundable health-care tax credit.

We must enact meaningful medical liability reform to increase access and  reduce added costs and inefficiencies from defensive medicine.

In trying to help people who have uninsurable conditions, we must acknowledge  that the magnitude, demographics and root causes of the uninsured problem differ  from state to state. To the extent government can address the issue, the answer  does not lie in a one-size-fits-all federal government scheme imposed on states  and citizens, but in state leaders, working with medical providers, employers,  consumers and insurers to design state-based solutions.

We should reduce and streamline government regulations that force valuable  resources to be spent on managing red tape rather than patient care. Free-market  innovations like the patient-centered medical home model hold real promise. This  is a collaborative approach by health care providers, insurers and patients  focused on achieving improved health outcomes, enhanced patient experience and  reduced costs.

In a 2010 pilot program involving diabetic patients, 809 participants were  compared to a control group of similar patients. The results were amazing. The  patient-centered medical home group had 10.7 percent fewer hospital admissions,  36.3 percent fewer inpatient hospital days and 32.2 percent fewer emergency room  visits. These improved health outcomes were achieved while the total medical  costs for these patients were reduced 6.5 percent.

As the economy limps along and Americans feel the pain, I hope on this third  anniversary of Obamacare we can take a minute to look at the damage it will do  and commit to do something now to reverse it.