It KILLS me when people say "If we cap. salaries, or give away health care, etc., people won't have any motivation to innovate, to take risks, work hard, no new things will be invented, or discovered, companies will fail, and we'll become a third world country...", etc., etc..
As if the opportunity to make billions is the only reason people strive to succeed, or realize dreams, and the drive to see ideas to fruition doesn't, itself, transcend money, in the minds of the truly creative. As if belief in an idea isn't what really pushes true visionaries to innovate. As if, absent the possibility of someday living opulently, no one would see anything as worth doing.
Maybe that's true for the greedy folks fighting so hard to see that we don't change the status quo, but, not most people.
If health care were free, if salaries were capped, the greedy types would innovate, risk take, work hard, strive to succeed, fight, and claw...for every PENNY, just as they now do for their million dollar bonuses, even though they wouldn't need to pay for health care. The rest would do as we've always done, and do things to earn a living as best we can, whether we earn just a somewhat comfortable living for ourselves and our families, or become uber-wealthy.
Taking away the ability to be uber-wealthy, or the need to be able to afford health care, would NOT curb ingenuity. Period.