Much of Europe has similar effective tax rates as the US. The difference is the US tax rate is taken out in a lot of separate taxes at the SS, Medicare, Income tax (federal) + State income tax, sales tax, property taxes + local sales taxes, property taxes. Plus Debt and a wide range of fines and fees. Where Europe has no EU wide taxes and it's all taken out at the 'state' and local level.
PS: Per person the US government spends as much on healthcare as many countries with 'national' healthcare so we are paying for it even if we don't have universal healthcare.
That's simply ignoring state and local government spending. Ed: And possibly Medicare. It's also ignoring the 50% of company matching medicare which is paid by the self employed.
PS: As a sanity check. Federal (24.33 GDP -3.72%GDP given to the sates) State spending is 8.97% of GDP, local 10.69%, which adds up to 40.27% GDP. Note: Actual revenue is only 32.61% GDP because we are just borrowing that much money but debt does get paid back one way or another. http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/year_revenue_2012USpn_13p...
PS: Per person the US government spends as much on healthcare as many countries with 'national' healthcare so we are paying for it even if we don't have universal healthcare.