The local paper for the Upper East Side
WEEK OF MARCH
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2017
WHAT THE GOP HEALTH CARE BILL COULD MEAN FOR NEW YORKERS POLICY Who stands to win and lose under the American Health Care Act? Gerald and Peggy Huteau in the bakery. Photo: Laura Hanrahan
FRENCH SWEETS FOR THE UPPER EAST SIDE FOOD The “hell to heaven” story behind Miss Madeleine, newest addition to the neighborhood BY LAURA HANRAHAN
Miss Madeleine, a bright little shop on East 82nd Street, is bringing authentic French pastries to the Upper East Side. Opened last week, the newest neighborhood addition to the neighborhood is the result of years of dreaming and planning by husband and wife Gerald and Peggy Huteau. Named after the small French madeleine cake — their specialty — Miss Madeleine will also serve a number of other traditional baked goods, all handmade by Peggy, including baguettes and what Gerald calls “the best croissant in all of Manhattan.” “You will find cakes, you will find macarons — all the French pastries you will find exactly as in Paris,” he said. “We’re going to have apple turnover, chocolate eclair, and French pies.”
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OurTownEastSide
O OURTOWNNY.COM @OurTownNYC
BY MICHAEL GAROFALO
As Republicans in Washington, D.C., work to repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with their proposed alternative, the American Health Care Act, New York policymakers are working to understand how the bill will impact the state’s health insurance market if it becomes law. According to analysis from the New York Department of Health, over one million New Yorkers would face a “significant loss of health care” under the Republican plan. The department also found that the plan would shift $2.4 billion in costs to hospitals and state and local governments each year, beginning in 2020, and $4.2 billion over the next four years. Nationwide, the Congressional Budget Office projects that the bill would increase the number of uninsured Americans by 24 million by 2026, but would cut federal deficits by $336 billion over the same period. “In the end, people who will still have insurance will fall into two groups under this plan: older Americans and lower-income people who will pay more for coverage or lose it altogether, and higher-income people who will pay less,” Governor Andrew
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Cuomo said in a press release announcing the Department of Health’s findings. Bill Hammond, director of health policy at the Empire Center, said that one of the largest groups that stands to lose coverage consists of low-income New Yorkers covered under the state’s Essential Plan. The Department of Health found that under the American Health Care Act the state would be forced to eliminate the Essential Plan, which provides subsidized insurance for low-income New Yorkers who do not qualify for Medicaid and is financed mostly with federal money. Funding for the $4 billion program would be cut under the Republican replacement bill. As of January 2016, about 380,000 New Yorkers were enrolled in the Essential Plan. The state’s online health care marketplace would likely remain in place under the American Health Care Act, but the tax credits available to individuals purchasing insurance through the state exchange would be restructured. The Republican plan grants individuals tax credits based on age rather than income, meaning that many New Yorkers would face significant changes in their out-of-pocket premium costs. The available tax credits increase with age, from $2,000 for those under 30 to $4,000 for those over 60. Analysis performed by the Kaiser Family Foundation provides an approximate picture of the
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Gov. Andrew Cuomo delivers remarks at SEIU rally. Photo courtesy of the Governor’s Office, via flickr changes in subsidies Manhattan residents would face under the Republican proposal. For example, a 27-year-old earning $30,000 per year living in Manhattan would see her health care subsidy cut by about half, from $3,970 per year under the Affordable Care Act to $2,000 per year under House Republicans’ plan. Older Manhattanites would fare better than their younger neighbors under the Republican plan, according to the Kaiser analysis. The subsidies available to 60-year-olds earning $30,000 per year would remain virtually unchanged, while 60-year-olds earning more than $40,000 would see their subsidies increase — in some cases, drastically. A 60-year-old with an income of $75,000 receives no subsidy under the Affordable
Care Act, but would be the recipient of a new $4,000 tax credit courtesy of the House plan. “For people who are very lowincome and young, that’s going to be a lot less than the tax credits they have been getting,” Hammond said. “For people who are a little higher-income and a little older, they might actually come out ahead.”
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