I don't know where you're getting your numbers for the Swedish budget, but the OECD [1] says that their spending is $23,780 per capita, which would make for a $

I don't know where you're getting your numbers for the Swedish budget, but the OECD [1] says that their spending is $23,780 per capita, which would make for a $247+ bn budget for a country of 10.4 mn people. So more than double NYC's. Your PPP argument doesn't hold either. Sweden's PPP is only slightly above the US average, but it would certainly well above NYC's. NYC is one of the most expensive markets in the United States. You seem to be asserting that if NYC would just fix some inefficiencies, they'd be able to implement a Scandinavian style social welfare state with the savings. I'm sure there is waste in the system, as there is in all large bureaucracies, but to assert that there's so much that we could fund free healthcare out of it is just nonsense. [1] https://data.oecd.org/gga/general-government-spending.htm https://data.oecd.org/gga/general-government-spending.htm