Actually, it ISN'T working in Europe; in France and Germany especially, they've been spending the better part of two decades trying to figure out a way to dial their socialist excesses back.
The principal problem that the much-more-socialized Europeans are dealing with is that their socialized societies are UNAFFORDABLE. While it's nice to tell people things they want to hear (health care is free, pre-and-post natal care are free, university is free, etc., etc.), reality tells folks a somewhat different story (healthcare outcomes are much worse than in the US, there's nothing FREE about college-trained natal care workers, universities are anything but free).
The principal functional reality of socialized systems compared to our system is that their citizens pay much, much more in taxes and get much less in return than we do. The attraction in the US for European-style socialism is that some folks in the US get less than they would under a socialized system. We'd be WAY better off helping those that need it (and not even one extra person who doesn't) instead of turning the whole system upside down because a relatively few folks need the help of their fellow citizens.
Of course, the purpose of turning the whole system upside down to institutionalize socialism in the US is NOT to help those in need of it; no, the purpose is to gather power in the hands of the few who consider themselves to be better and smarter than us little people and will dictate major aspects of our lives to us from their aeries in state capitols and Washington, D.C. THIS is the source of the disgust at the very idea of Hillary Clinton returning to the White House.
Some examples of socialized European life:
Unemployment: chronically in the range of 8% - 10%; it stays high because, for example, in Germany an unemployed worker receives 80% of the wages he earned while employed; in addition to his not needing the income provided by a job, he doesn't have to take any job he doesn't want so he can be on unemployment INDEFINTELY; is it, then, any surprise that Germany imports workers from overseas while its native population is unemployed at a rate that would cause a change in government in the US?,
Taxes: Euro zone sales tax is now 19%; income taxes are SUBSTANTIALLY higher than they are in the US; the difference in gasoline prices ($3/gal. here and $6 - $8/gal. there) is due solely to taxes, and
Health Care: effectively, it's rationed; as already mentioned - quality of care is lower (British deaths due to breast cancer are 25% higher than in the US in the first five years after diagnosis and this includes insured and uninsured Americans with breast cancer - rates are similar in France); take the time to read of the travails of the British health care service to see how difficult it is to get socialized medicine to work despite more than a decade of throwing remarkably large sums of money at the problem; one thing about this subject, however, is crystal clear: if the US winds up with a socialized medical system, there are going to be some VERY UNHAPPY citizens in this country due to the reduction in availability and quality of care; the only problem will be the same one the Europeans are continually wrestling with - there seems to be no going back once you've socialized a system!
Obviously, socialized systems are anything but "free".
One functional reality of human life is this: people do NOT like to give up something they already have. So, whether it's rent control in NYC (read: your landlord subsidizes your living expenses) or state-wide or country-wide socialized medicine, once it's in place, it will be in place FOREVER. That fact alone means that it behooves us to consider very, very carefully whether or not we want to go down a path that can already be seen to not be working is other societies that are very similar to our own.
As an aside, you may be wondering why socialized medicine results in medical rationing / reduction in access to care. Here's why: socializing medicine will not create one more doctor nor one more nurse (the US is presently 100,000 nurses SHORT of what is needed and we're importing English-speaking nurses from the third world at a prodigious rate and STILL can't keep up - imagine what it's gonna be like when the Baby Boomers retire!). It's already much harder to get into veterinary school than it is to medical school; doctors have been telling their children for 15 years to that medicine may not be a career they should be condsidering.
More patients with the same or fewer medical workers = rationing. This isn't a rationale for denying health care to people that need it; it IS, however, a fact of life in socialized systems. One other fact is that those systems are MUCH slower to roll out advanced treatments and medications and, even when they are rolled out, their use is severely restricted due to cost. Effectively more rationing.
Why is this the case? You cannot tax people enough to pay for all the goodies you've promised them - even if you took ALL their money (like the Communists did) there would still not be enough resources to pay for all the promised goodies.
As a group, Americans will not be happy with large socialized systems in this country. Look at how many of them feel about their choice-free public educational systems. Not too thrilled, are they? I could go on and on (I know, I already have ;-) but I'll quit here. Hope it helped!