There was a good comment(I have it saved somewhere) explaining this quite well - some places in the world(European nations mostly) got so fucked over by history, over and over and over again that as societies they realized you cannot "pull yourself by your bootstraps" and provide for yourself in all circumstances. Just in the 20th century it was possible to see your country ravaged by two world wars, change ideologies three times, change the dominant religion and ownership of land between major powers few times in just few decades.....the societies have realized that the only way to make it work is by providing certain services to everyone, free of charge, purely because they are citizens with no strings attached(and no, this has nothing to do with communism). Meanwhile, in US, the "pioneer" ideal still reigned - anyone could achieve anything, given enough hard work. That ideal didn't exist in Europe at the time, or was crushed so thoroughly its destruction echoed through society - you could be the most hardworking person in Europe, but if someone decided they were going to pillage your land, rape your family and send you all to concentration camps - that was going to happen. No amount of positive thinking and hard work was going to prevent it. So yes, to my granparents it's absolutely obvious that everyone should have equal chances - healthcare should be funded by the state, as should education and child-bearing. They still get really upset over the fact that despite all education being 100% free in this country students still have to pay for their own housing - why should they? The state wants to have well educated citizens, why the hell should the students be paying anything to study. Once again, this has nothing to do with communism, but I am sure Americans would label it as such.
The US and Europe are not really great comparisons for a bunch of reasons, but the fundamental one is that Europe has been at Malthusian population limits for a long time, whereas North America has had an essentially unlimited, unpopulated frontier that new people could move to and create lives for themselves.
Thus, the American notion of pulling your self up by your bootstraps was a workable one. Since North America was first colonized by Europeans, Americans have moved west and made a future for themselves and their descendants by using hard work to harvest the bounty of nature. But Europe has been full for thousands of years. You can't just move West, work some land, and raise a family; there are already other people wherever you would want to go.
