zefalt

150% -> 125%

25÷150 = .1667

That's how they arrived at 17%.

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The federal government has the ability to tax "income." Unrealized gains are not income as gains have not been clearly realized.

The closest legal definition for "income" comes from:

The Glenshaw Glass case

In Commissioner v. Glenshaw Glass Co., 348 U.S. 426 (1955), the Supreme Court laid out what has become the modern understanding of what constitutes "gross income" to which the Sixteenth Amendment applies, declaring that income taxes could be levied on "accessions to wealth, clearly realized, and over which the taxpayers have complete dominion". Under this definition, any increase in wealth—whether through wages, benefits, bonuses, sale of stock or other property at a profit, bets won, lucky finds, awards of punitive damages in a lawsuit, qui tam actions—are all within the definition of income, unless the Congress makes a specific exemption, as it has for items such as life insurance proceeds received by reason of the death of the insured party, gifts, bequests, devises and inheritances, and certain scholarships.

Those same people you say can't afford healthcare are the ones that are heavily subsidized by others through ACA, free community health plans, or Medicaid.

Healthcare is not a commodity despite your claim. It requires labor.

It seems most people are generally satisfied with their health insurance in the USA as opposed to the UK (see links below). In fact, the satisfaction from employer provided healthcare was much higher pre-ACA than it is currently. The middle class got shafted with increased premiums and deductibles to help subsidize those with low income. This has led to lower healthcare utilization rates in the middle class. The rich don't care since it's a marginal cost relative to their income/wealth. And, the biggest spenders (elderly) don't care since they are mostly on Medicare.

Most of the countries that report high satisfaction with their socialized medicine are both rich and have a low population count.

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