It’s all relative.

The House bill would place new taxes on the wealthiest people to help expand insurance coverage to the nation’s 46 million uninsured people. The legislation calls for a 5.4% surtax on those with annual gross incomes exceeding $1 million.

Households with annual income between $500,000 a year and $1 million would be hit with a 1.5% surtax, and those earning between $350,000 and $500,000 would face a 1% surtax. Those rates could eventually increase to 3% and 2%, respectively, if the government doesn’t achieve certain health-cost savings.

That’s from a Wall Street Journal article explaining the 1,000+ page healthcare bill that your Senate and House representatives are sure not to read.

Some of those numbers sound like a lot of money. But what’s not captured are the number of small business owners in that lot — the ones who work 60 hours a week, who don’t get to split at 5 pm, who don’t get to leave the stress at the welcome mat — or the number of unemployed that will be created once employers determine they can’t afford so many employees.

Here’s something interesting: The Global Rich List. Input an annual salary and it will tell you how you rank against the rest of the world. For example, input just $25,000, which is what we’d term lower income class, and you’ll find that you’re nonetheless in the top 10 percent of the world’s wage earners. Say you marry another like-incomed person — congratulations, you’re now in the top 1 percent, as you both file income tax jointly, share bills, expenses, etc.

My point here is that finances, especially income, are relative. As is morality. And choices. How many of us save for cars, homes, jewelry, big screen televisions, etc., but don’t save a single dime for our health. Why not? Health savings accounts are available.

Most of us save something for retirement independently, because years ago the general population conceded that Social Security (what FDR’s peeps called retirement insurance) didn’t exactly give you bang for your lifetime of taxed bucks — you needed more. Some day we’ll be in a similar position with single-payer healthcare where on top of their “free” healthcare they’re forced to buy extra because the government “option” was a lousy one (as many U.K. or Canadians do today). But that won’t solve the woes of rationing: limited choices, longer waits, fewer drugs and life-saving or life-prolonging procedures.