also, it is extremely annoying when people mislead by looking at personal income tax without adjuating the effective tax rate up by what has already been paid by the corporation. Dividend and cap gains taxes should be lower because the corp pays tax and how a dollar is earned shouldnt affect the tax paid on it. The goal is for the corp tax plus the dividend/cap gains tax to roughly equal what the tax would be if the person just earned the dollar personally and it largely does that at these rates.
Privately rich people have the power to change the world, sometimes for good and sometimes for evil. The dream is to eliminate the Bill Gateses, Elon Musks, Donald Trumps, and George Soroses of the world, so that only those connected to government and The Party have real financial power.
Draw the line low enough, and it might eliminate the Paul Grahams of the world. Or even, as in Russia, small time independent farmers (https://www.britannica.com/topic/kulak ).
I obviously think this is a terrible idea. Destroying the wealthy out of jealousy is a bloody impulse without a bottom that leaves everyone powerless. But it does greatly empower those who can make themselves exceptions to the rule, which is the actual point.
How about destroying the wealthy because they ultimately decide if your child will get medical treatment?
[0]https://www.vanityfair.com/news/elon-musk-twitter-ultimatum
Rage without justice or reason is a solid indication you're being exploited. Not generally for your benefit, either. The people who want you to help them destroy the wealthy don't intend to make you president when they're done.
For what it's worth, I'm of the opinion that the combination of very expensive health care and the fact that health insurance is tied to employment effectively add up to a form of slavery. That's a great evil. I'm sorry it so directly affects you personally. It's easy to point to the employers who apparently benefit from the situation, but they didn't ask for things to be this way and are also struggling with how expensive your insurance is. If you lose health insurance in a layoff, that's an indication that the problem is bigger than your employer can handle on your behalf. You don't make enough money to cover your expenses - a harsh situation, but fundamentally a problem for charity, not for business.
I think when we suffer, or are afraid we will suffer, it is easy to get angry at the wrong people. I would suggest that the billionaire next door has nothing to do with your medical stress (and for all you know, may be running a foundation to cure your disease), and that your beef ought to be with a medical industry that makes critical treatment so expensive and leaves you with so few alternatives. That is the kidnapper in this scenario, and everything else is arguing over who should pay the ransom. I could point to a dozen cursed mechanisms that make things that way. With pharmaceuticals alone, there seem to be a hundred different flavors of people held hostage by extremely and unnecessarily expensive treatments - a famous one being diabetics needing hundreds of dollars to pay for a medicine that the veterinary world manages to produce for horses for mere cents.
The cost of medicine is making us poor, and somewhat enslaved to boot. This is not a problem of inequality. Medicare is an attempt to provide a financially equitable solution, and is struggling on both ends: doctors refusing to take it because it doesn't pay enough to cover their expenses, and the government concerned that the program is so expensive, it couldn't be paid for no matter how much you took from all the rich people. The problem is not the distribution of money, but the cost of the service itself.
The industry is in crisis on many levels, and due for a total reboot. And there are lots of (sometimes rich!) people attempting just that. I can point to the direct primary care phenomenon and the recent revolution in type 2 diabetes care as two obvious and recent ones. But there are zillions - I even see YC companies in the health space pretty frequently.
Broadly speaking, I would say that we as a population are becoming sicker and are leaning on a medical industry that can't own up to its own inability to make us well - but is willing to very expensively fail at the job. (And I don't just mean obesity and heart disease, though those are obvious examples - it seems to me that many health problems follow this pattern.) That opinion puts me pretty far outside the mainstream, but then again I think it is becoming increasingly obvious that the mainstream is in crisis.
There are specific paths out of the disaster, for specific people and specific problems. Look for them, and keep looking, and help others. In the mean time, be careful with frustration and rage. Plenty of forces want to exploit your anger for their ends - don't get played. Be clear on what the problem actually is and stay focused on that.
[1] I am using "Medicare" as a metonymy for Medicare, Medicaid, and similar plans both real and proposed, to pay for medical care via taxes.