No, it is not beneficial to society to over-tax the wealthy, who drive the economy forward and invest in new growth, after all. However, you don't need to do that to ensure the welfare of all law-abiding citizens. 40% income tax should be the maximum, and I think that's the ceiling rate here in the UK. It can be considered beneficial to the overall wellbeing of a nation to provide basic fixed unemployment welfare, in such a way that it is livable, but less than the minimum wage, even after tax.
For one, unemployed people with sufficient benefits, in some form, will be much less likely to resort to crime, and secondly, it provides a safety net against poverty and squalor.
40% less income, maximum. Say someone earns £1 million a year. Would a £400,000 deduction from that do any harm, except maybe to egos? It's not tearing anyone down. However, it needn't even be that much.
There is, however, a fair point that welfare can take away the incentive to get employment, or encourage laziness and sloth, etc. However, this needn't be the case. Social stigma and a yearning for accomplishment, success, and material goods can encourage people to get jobs, without harming families and punishing those without job opportunities.
As for universal healthcare and university access, both are essential to ensuring an educated, skilled, healthy populace. One could argue that healthcare and education are not rights, and that public healthcare lacks innovation. The former, is of course, highly subjective, and I agree that public healthcare can suffer from a lack of innovation, and fall behind technologically.
However, public healthcare can also be cheaper overall, as a state system is not out for profit, and can thus lower variable costs. This is not true for the US, of course, as Medicare pays private medical companies, who will often be out to make a profit.
As for some medical professionals being driven by the highest amount of money, there are ways of stopping the brain drain. Trainees can be bound to public healthcare for so long by contract, in exchange for lower university fees, which they will not have to pay as long as they remain in public healthcare for the duration of their contract.
Medical research and innovation is probably best driven by regulated for-profit research companies, which are paid handsome sums for their patents, and then government production of their medicines, at a low cost.
