Thursday, January 30, 1997
UCLA historian part of California Map Society
The flat truth is, these people are mad about maps.
About 50 members who gathered Saturday for the California Map Society's 40th general meeting talked about the history of maps, their social and artistic value, and especially how technology has changed map-making.
"It's a revolution even greater than any of the previous revolutions in the history of cartography," said Norman Thrower, a UCLA cartographer and historian.
Thrower recalled the labor-intensive, pre-computer work of mapping California's population using data from the 1960 U.S. census.
"It took five years before it could be published," he said. "Now we could do that almost instantaneously."
Mapmaking of the past has another price, too.
Society President William Warren told of a 1656 map by Dutch master Henderick Doncker that shows California as an island. Warren passed on the purchase because of the dealer's $600 price. His wife later gave it to him as a gift.
Insurance costs too much for Californians
Health insurance remains too expensive for a large number of California residents, and health coverage for state's workers lags behind the nation, according to a UC Berkeley and UCLA study on health insurance in California.
Researchers from the University of California at Berkeley School of Public Health and the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research found that the number of California residents with no health insurance continues to increase, adding up to a total of 6.6 million uninsured Californians. Of the uninsured adults who were surveyed, more than one-third said they did not go to the doctor in 1996 because of the cost.
"California needs to enact reforms to make health insurance affordable and accessible to everyone," said Helen Halpin Schauffler, director of the UC Berkeley Health Insurance Policy Program and one of the report's principal authors. "Nearly one-fourth of the state's non-elderly residents do not have health insurance," she said, adding that the health of California's uninsured population is poor and requires immediate attention.
The study also showed that just 57 percent of California residents have job-based health coverage, compared with 66 percent of all Americans, and that cost is the primary reason many employers do not provide health benefits.
"Health insurance is simply unaffordable for many people," said E. Richard Brown, a professor at the UCLA School of Public Health and another principal author of the study. "Even some people who are offered coverage through their employers find that their portion of the cost is just too high."
Furthermore, the study showed that most health insurers still use pre-existing conditions to exclude certain people from obtaining coverage. "These practices are a major barrier to extending health insurance to more people," Schauffler said.
Chancellor Charles Young receives award
Chancellor Charles E. Young was presented with the first International Education Leadership Award by the Coalition for International Education on Jan. 23.
Dr. Corneulius Pings, president of the American Association of Universities and a prominent member of the Coalition for International Education, presented the award to Chancellor Young and praised him for his service to higher education and especially for his contributions to promoting international studies.
In his acceptance speech, Young noted that "a great university must be characterized by three major efforts: internationalization, multiculturalism and diversity."
Compiled from Daily Bruin staff and wire reports.