Europe and the US compared?

It depends if we (51% or 67%, it depends on which "we" you are referring to) want to be a free country or not. It's rather sad that freedom boils down to a vote... If we want to force people to go into the military or pay for someone else's health problems, then I guess it will come down to a vote. That is the problem with democracy: if 51% or 67% of the Congress decides that theft, slavery, and indentured servitude can be legalized (which they have; they have simply granted themselves and other branches of government oligopoly powers), so be it.

If you ask me, I would emphatically say NO we should not expand the power of our federal, state, and local governments. Our government exists to steal and redistribute (under the disguise of benevolence, public safety, and the like), and there is no unambiguous moral or ethical (yet there exists a legal) justification for such activity. This is not a socialist nation, and I hope we change our present course toward socialism.

If I take your meaning, you would tie a universal health care to compulsory military service, or something like it. We already have something of that sort which is tied to military service; its called the Veterans Administration. And while its better than it has been, its a far cry perfect for the needs of those who use it.

Those countries in Europe who have some kind of universal health care coverage and some sort of mandatory military service don't on the whole link the two things, and don't have much of a combat deployment obligation as it is. It is true that these folks also have higher tax rates as well. They also have other social protections that they collectively pay for.

Without meaning to sound paranoid, I sense an agenda here. Do you see the desire for an equitable health care system to be a leftist issue, upheld by a group of persons who are unwilling to pay taxes and serve their country? Or are you just asking for a larger personal investment in the system as a whole for the American people?

Australia has all of those things (as does the UK) without military service. Actualy not that many continental nationas have compulsory service...I don't thinkthe tax rates are that much different - a little higher but not much.

I find it very odd when watching an American TV show and they ask a sick or injured person at a hospital what their insurance details are - can they REALY be refused help if they are not insured?!?!?!?

Should expanded "benefits" from government also come at the cost of higher taxes AND required military service to the country?

No

Europe is a continent with several different nations. The US is one nation... Unfair comparison, yo.

They are becoming closer and closer!