Right, but I think "best in the world" is more a negative comment about other systems being terrible than a positive comment about this system being actually good.
My experience is that the system outside of payments and such is seen as superb (when it's actually average), and the rest is seen as OKish (when it's terrifyingly bad).
I was discussing health care reform with one fellow who was under the mistaken impression that outcomes in the US were significantly better. After I explained that people in countries with socialized medicine get care that's just as good as ours, he asked me, "OK, but then why do we need to change anything?" He really thought that the current system, if not great, was still perfectly fine. I've seen that a lot.
There is, no doubt, a wide spectrum of beliefs. But don't underestimate the number of people who think the system is pretty good overall. Really, just look at the total lack of any credible alternative reform put forth by the right wing. They talk big, but they don't seem to come up with anything beyond "leave it alone". They're stuck in kind of a tough position, because they've been advocating government non-interference and free-market solutions for so long, yet they're not in a place where it's acceptable to say that poor people should die in the streets from treatable conditions, even though that's what a free market solution gives you. As a result, there's a huge incentive to convince people that the way things are right now is just fine.
I'm not sure what you base the statement "that's what a free market solution gives you" on, since as far as I know we've never had anything remotely resembling a free market solution. In my experience, one of the most common refrains from that side is "the current solution is bad precisely in the ways that it's not free market". Granted, they're just guessing what will happen, but I don't see that as meaningfully different from your guess about people dying in the streets etc.
Also, I have no doubt that you've talked to people with strange ideas, but your conception of what conservatives advocate (or fail to advocate) is very far from my conception of what conservatives advocate. Your statements make me think you know someone like one of my friends, but you're missing the whole rest of the spectrum of conservative/libertarian/capitalist thoughts, memes, and ideas.
