The system of 11 hospitals — which already provide free care to the uninsured — costs taxpayers more than $2 billion a year, while scheduled federal Medicaid cuts threaten another $1 billion or more in the next year. (Photo: Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) –New York Mayor Bill de Blasio says he's turning the city into a model for how the nation can provide health care to all, including the poor, the uninsured and undocumented immigrants. In doing so, he says he's saved the city's public hospitals from bankruptcy and can provide universal care for just $100 million by steering New Yorkers away from emergency rooms and into managed-care clinics. Yet he may have promised more than he can deliver.

The system of 11 hospitals — which already provide free care to the uninsured — costs taxpayers more than $2 billion a year, while scheduled federal Medicaid cuts threaten another $1 billion or more in the next year.

Those pressures may far outstrip the savings he expects to reap from his proposal, according to private and government analysts familiar with the agency known as NYC Health + Hospitals.