Community Briefs

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.