What the Fucking Fuck !!! Trump is imposing 19% taxes on all Obamacare policies

[BruceWane]

9. Not a tax

The author of the article is using the word "tax" in a figurative sense.

Trump and the republicans have said they plan to hold up subsidy payments to insurance companies as way to bring democrats to make a deal.

Within a few weeks, insurance companies are required to declare their rates for the coming year, so they could very well factor the loss of the subsidies into premiums, causing an increase estimated as high as 20%. That's from this factor alone; could be even more when considering rising health care costs.

So it's not actually by definition a "tax", but since it's a cost that could be extracted from marketplace health insurance users that is caused by the federal governments actions, it can certainly be considered as a figurative tax.

The word "tax" gets attention. "Marketplace health insurance cost increase due to political BS" gets less.