The US democratic system, its flag, and its federal Republic are actually not great.
French secularism and the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Man are actually quite flawed.
The UK's NHSs are not, in fact, the envies of the world.
But there is value in national myths too.

And I can't see anything else that the UK has, or is likely to have, that comes close to what "the NHS" means to us a nation, the unity that it offers today, and the unity it can offer going forward. It fills a big part of a big gap. I'm grateful for that, despite all its flaws.

Some wishful thinking in the replies. The NHS trounces the BBC, the Royal Family, and the Church of England as something that Britons are proud of in survey after survey after survey. The NHS brand is one of the strongest forces holding the UK together, whether we like it or not.

https://www.newstatesman.com/business/2013/01/nhs-even-more-cherished-monarchy-and-army https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2018/07/04/nhs-british-institution-brits-are-second-most-prou https://www.itv.com/news/2018-06-07/britons-most-proud-of-nhs-survey-finds

Just like progressive politicians will dabble with abolishing the monarchy in their youth, then grow out of it. So conservative politicians often dabble with abolishing the NHS in their youth and then realise they would actually rather not remove the country's identity.