[Y]ou can be rich through inheritance.

That's rich in spite of your own laziness.

The rich who are deserving, in my view, are those who provide actually useful goods and services.

In a free market (which I accept that neither the US nor Europe has) 'useful goods and services' are determined by market forces. I'll agree that there are lots of 'useless' products and services on the market, but they're either there due to market forces, or government manipulation of market forces, and increasing the amount of government manipulation probably isn't the solution to the problem.

And to answer your original question, I'll suggest it's always theft to use force or the threat thereof take something from one person simply because they possess it and give it to someone else simply because they would benefit from it.

[O]ne of the few blessings of living in Europe is that we don't have [medical debt].

Because the US taxpayer and consumer subsidizes your medical system. If the US drops out of NATO and/or mandates that drugs not be sold at a lower cost overseas than they are sold to US consumers, your government medical system(s) would collapse. Not that our system of insurance cartels is good, but it allows your system of government controlled pricing to exist.

[Y]ou can be rich through inheritance.

That's rich in spite of your own laziness.

The rich who are deserving, in my view, are those who provide actually useful goods and services.

In a free market (which I accept that neither the US nor Europe has) 'useful goods and services' are determined by market forces. I'll agree that there are lots of 'useless' products and services on the market, but they're either there due to market forces, or government manipulation of market forces, and increasing the amount of government manipulation probably isn't the solution to the problem.

And to answer your original question, I'll suggest it's always theft to use force or the threat thereof take something from one person simply because they possess it and give it to someone else simply because they would benefit from it.

[O]ne of the few blessings of living in Europe is that we don't have [medical debt].

Because the US taxpayer and consumer subsidizes your medical system. If the US drops out of NATO and/or mandates that drugs not be sold at a higher cost overseas than they are sold to US consumers, your government medical system(s) would collapse. Not that our system of insurance cartels is good, but it allows your system of government controlled pricing to exist.