In general, yes. If you have a problem with how much people are paid in a public utility, essentially, like health care, then first of all, verify if it's the case. If it's the case, pay them more and see if it has the desired impact.
On the more general principle, governments have to decide how much revenue they need. That's obviously a fungible proposition, and people can debate it—that's fair enough—but then who do you get it from?
To me, this debate is actually a little bit simpler than all of the arcane arguments about incentives and so on. If we need more revenues, either to balance the books or to fund programs people want and the government in power wants to pursue, you have to decide who you get it from. This gets a little bit more from the people who have more. From a health perspective, equity is better. Equity means better health status and probably, in the long run, reduces demand on the health care system.
I doubt you will find many population health researchers—or anybody who is concerned about health status and the productivity that's associated with people who have poor health status and all of those other things—who don't point to examples around the world where less equal societies, both in terms of income and wealth concentration, aren't healthier. They are healthier.
I'm a health policy person. I've been in the health field all of my life. As you say, I'm also an entrepreneur who uses the tax system in all of the ridiculous ways the tax system creates incentives for me to use it. I have gotten richer because of the capital gains tax as it was before, the treatment of dividends and the ability to smooth out my income, etc.