There are many, many flaws in the NHS, but what it does is pretty awesome, even if a lot of the time it's not perfect.
I lived in the UK for many years and have both good and bad experiences with them. I think as a general rule NHS and similar appear fine to you if all that happens to you are routine patches and checkups.
But if something really bad happens like cancer or the like, you really want to be in the US where there are more advanced treatments. This is also why you always hear about fundraising events to send children with rare cancers to the US. There are many things wrong with the US health care system, but none of those things change the fact the the US still have the highest level of advanced care in the world.
And oh yes "Socialist" is a dirty word. According to U of Hawaii Socialists killed nearly 170 million people in the 20th century (http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM). That would qualify it as a dirty word. To create an egalitarian socialist society with job safety and free health care for all you must create a web of control and get rid of all the annoying people such as small businessmen, farmers and intellectuals might prove your ideas are wrong.
Now Western European Socialism (I spent 6 of my formative years in the Social Democratic Youth in Denmark and was a true believer) is not out to kill off their opponents, rather they bribe them to convert over to the dark side. In my country an incredible 55% of voters receive their primary income from the government, as you can imagine even the "right" don't dare to propose real changes. I have heard similar figures for the UK.
Besides to make a "socialist" welfare state economically viable you need conformance. This comes with a huge loss of privacy. Tony Blair created an incredible surveillance state, Hitler and Stalin would have been proud.
Contact Point the social services database of all UK children and their school and medical activities went live a few months ago, to make sure no one falls through the cracks. UK parents are supposed to be happy that the database is only available to 390,000 individuals. Sorry that scares the hell out of me.
* Socialism = Preventing race to bottom
* Capitalism = Promoting race to top