Do you even know where the parent poster is living?
Since healthcare in _my_ "socialist" (from a USA point of view) country certainly isn't generally paid for by taxes but by insurance fees. (Exception: the unemployed are covered by social security, which is an insurance system partially backed from the tax pool)
The only "socialist" part here is that they make it hard to avoid the system (that is, leech off from others when you eventually get sick and end up in the ER, incurring costs higher than your net worth)
Money is fungible. Generally, the higher level of services is paid for by the higher level of overall taxation - you can call it fees or whatever, it doesn't change the fact that on average, you are left with less disposable income. This might be fine as a societal choice, but just don't think it's free.
It's no free, but it's shared on everybody in a way that we don't feel it's a burden, and everybody gets access to decent healthcare without having to worry about it.
"the higher level of services is paid for by the higher level of overall taxation"
Not necessarily. You can also try to reduce the cost of the service. Healthcare in most European countries costs less than in the US for the same service (for instance medical acts prices can be largely controlled by the state).
Honestly, I don't know much about economics. However I think it's fair to say that in that particular field, what may be great on paper may not work in practice. The theoretical models are so remote from real life that I'm not sure they provide much value. So it essentially boils down to ideology.
If one has to be dogmatic, I would privilege "free" healthcare and education to private property and free market.
High taxes are fine with me as long as I, and everyone else, also get a high level of services. In some sense it is understandable that middle-class Americans have a distaste for taxation since most of the tax money just ends up being funneled to the upper-class through corporate subsidies, grants, tax credits, and warfare.
