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NATION i
THE BATTALION Wednesday, October22,2®
Growing share of uninsured workers
employed at biggest U.S. companies
By Leigh Strope
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — A third of the nation’s
workers without health insurance are employed by
large companies, a study says.
Thirty-two percent of all uninsured workers in
2001 were employed by big companies, up from
25 percent in 1987, according to the report
released Tuesday by The Commonwealth Fund.
Researchers cited as factors soaring health care
costs, declines in manufacturing and union jobs
and the changing structure of large corporations
— those with more than 500 employees — and the
benefits they offer.
“Policy-makers seeking solutions to the grow
ing uninsured problem must look beyond workers
in small firms, or they risk leaving out a large
group of low-wage uninsured workers,” said
Jeanne Lambrew, an author of the study and an
associate professor of health policy at George
Washington University.
The study also noted that seven out of 10 unin
sured workers at large companies were not offered
health insurance, and 15 percent were ineligible.
Low-income workers were the most likely to be
without coverage.
The Census Bureau estimates that 44 million
Americans were uninsured last year.
While researchers found a growing number of
uninsured workers at large firms, they said the oppo
site was true for small and medium-sized companies.
The percentage of uninsured employees in small
businesses — those with fewer than 100 workers —
dropped from 67 percent in 1987 to 57 percent in
2001. Similarly, the number of uninsured workers at
medium-sized companies fell from 14 percent to 12
percent during the same period.
Access to health care and employers' rising costs
have been debated in Congress and by the nine
Democrats seeking to challenge President Bush next
year. The issue also is at the center of numerous labor
disputes in California and elsewhere.
Striking grocery workers and public transit
mechanics have caused widespread inconvenience
and economic losses in Southern California.
Thousands of Kroger Co. grocery workers also
walked out in West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky and
Missouri last week. Unions are fighting to retain
top-of-the-line medical benefits while employers
want workers to pick up more of the cost.
Uninsured workeis
Thirty-two percent of all
uninsured workers in 2001 weie
employed by big companies, up
from 25 percent in 1987.
Share of uninsured
workers, by firm size
Large - 500
or more
employees
Medium-
100499
employees
Small - Less
than 100
employees
61% 57%
1987 2001’
“Does not add up to 100 percentdu«
to rounding
SOURCE: The Commonwealth Fund AF
695-0327 • 1 800 Brothers Blvd., College Station
Check out our original and unique
Graduation Announcements at
Scientists recover the remnants
of the supposedly lost Erie Canal
Texas A&M University
Order today and receive them in
approximately 1 week!
We have our own special
design licensed by A&M.
Don't miss it!
• Graduation Announcements • Graduation Remembrance Displays
• Thank You Notes • Personalized Graduate Notepads
Order & pay online: www.aggielandprinting.com
1902 Texas Ave. South • College Station
(Texas Avenue and Park Place, in front of the new HEB)
693-8621 M-F 8:30-5:30
Graduate Students and
Seniors
WHO’S WHO AMONG STUDENTS
IN AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES AND COLLEGES
2003 - 2004
TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY
Who’s Who applications are now available for both graduate
students and senior undergraduates in the following locations:
Office of the Dean of each College
Office of Graduate Studies (302 Administration)
Office of the Vice President for Student Affairs (I O' 1 ’ Floor Rudder)
Commandant’s Office (Military Sciences Building)
Student Programs Office (2 nd Floor MSC)
Student Activities Office (125 Koldus Building)
Sterling C. Evans Library
West Campus Library
http://studentactivities.tamu.edu/whoswho
Completed applications are due to the Office of Graduate Studies or the Department of
Student Artivities no later than 5 p.m., on Friday, October 24, 2003.
Applications may be personally delivered or sent through US Mail or Campus Mail to either:
Office of Graduate Studies
ATTN: Who’s Who
1113 TAMU
302 Administration Building
College Station. TX 77843-1113
Dept, of Student Activities
ATTN: Who’s Who
1236 TAMU
125 John J. Koldus Building
College Station, TX 77843-1236
Questions may be referred to:
KimWiddison (845-3631) Sandy Briers (862-1973)
kwiddison @ vprmail.tamu.edu sandy @ stuact.tamu.edu
By Alicia Chang
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
COHOES, N.Y. — In its 19th
century heyday, pioneers, immi
grants and cargo swarmed the Erie
Canal, a bustling, fluid gateway
that opened up the country’s
heartland and the West.
When the canal faded from
prominence at the turn of the
last century, a myth arose that it
had been destroyed.
Armed with old maps and
shovels, a group of scientists
have set out to prove otherwise.
Since 1999, their careful detec
tive work has yielded promise:
They have recovered two origi
nal canal locks and other rem
nants from when the man-made
waterway expanded.
But they face their greatest
challenge when they try to
unearth the canal’s holy grail —
the eastern terminus of the orig
inal 363-mile Erie stretching
from Albany to Buffalo.
“The beauty of the Erie
Canal is that it’s there,” said F.
Andrew Wolfe, an engineer at
SUNY Institute of Technology.
“It’s a matter of finding it.”
Wolfe and his colleague,
Denis Foley, an anthropologist
at Union College, hope that
recovered artifacts will be a ref
erence point to other buried
structures from the canal that
established New York City as
the nation’s leading port.
“They have put a flashlight
on these sites that have long
been neglected and forgotten,
but that do tell about the her
itage of the state,” said Craig
Williams, a senior historian at
the New York State Museum.
Working this past summer,
the duo dug down 13 feet in this
former textile city just north of
Albany and uncovered an intact
foundation of Lock 37 and frag
ments of Lock 38 of the old
canal. The original locks were
numbered west to east starting
in Rome, in central New York.
The discovery of a quoin post
— a wedgelike piece of stone
where oak lock gates swung back
and forth.— proved it was a canal
lock, Foley said. The locks ush
ered mule-drawn boats through
changes in water levels in the
canal by opening the gates and
flooding the chambers with water.
The limestone-topped locks
were discovered in a cavernous
tunnel that was later used for
hydropower. Wolfe and Foley
spent three months studying the
locks, trying to answer why they
were built on shale instead of clay
and why there were feeder cul
verts to raise boats in the locks —
fixtures thought to exist only in
Lockport, north of Buffalo.
Trying to relocate all the old
locks is hard, they say.
Archaeology is an inexact sci
ence full of discoveries and dead
ends. One afternoon in late
September, Wolfe and Foley
tried to find the original Lock
42, figuring if they climbed
down a manhole opposite a knit
ting factory near locks 37 and
38, they’d hit it.
Clad in rubber boots, Wolfe
descended into the darkness of
the manhole while Foley waited
in the sunlight. Shining his
flashlight ahead, Wolfe stepped
on the slippery rocks, careful
not to slip into a gushing water
fall, and perched on a ledge. Up
ahead he could see an arch, an
entrance to the old canal. The
arch had been bricked up.
“I think we got a dead end,”
Wolfe said, snapping a digital pic
ture anyway before climbing out.
The construction of the Erie
Canal, begun in 1817 under
New York Gov. DeWitt Clinton,
was an engineering marvel, built
by the muscle of farmers and
horses without the convenience
of modern technology. Critics
dubbed the $7 million canal
“Clinton’s Ditch.”
The original 83-lock canal
was 40 feet wide and 4 feet deep
and opened up the interior of the
nation by connecting the Great
Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean.
Since Clinton’s inaugural trip
on Oct. 26, 1825, the waterway
carried a million settlers to
America’s heartland, created a
cheap route for shipping lumber,
wheat and flour, and spurred a
canal-building boom in the state.
By the mid-1800s, the canal
was widened to 70 feet and
deepened to 7 feet to keep up
with increased traffic and larger
boats. After 1918, the 524-mile
Barge Canal replaced Ik
Albany leg of the Erie while
motorized vessels replaced
mule-tugging boats.
Commercial traffic gradually
disappeared on the canal will
the opening of the St. Lawrence
Seaway in 1959 and competition
from railroads, airplanes and
highways. The canal slowly fell
into disuse. Today, mostly pleas
ure boats pass through the 57-
lock canal.
When the original canal
was capped and buried in I
1950s, scholars assumed Ik
locks and other structures were
destroyed based on research
done in the 1970s.
Then, digging in north Albany
in 2000, Wolfe and Foley chanced
upon their first canal artifact—a
weigh lock used by canal opera
tors to decide how much to charge
boats. Last year, they uncovered
the smooth granite blockstopping
a wall of Lock 1 at the eastern ter
minus of the enlarged canal.
The goal is to recover Lock
53, the eastern terminus of the
original Erie, located some
where in north Albany in a faded
industrial spot a few hundred
feet from Lock 1.
They have spent their week
ends in October searching for
the lock as well as foundations
of buildings around the locks
that would provide a glimpse
into the lives of the people who
worked on the canal.
NEWS IN BRIEF
States report on teacher quality
WASFIINGTON (AP) — Teachers in many of Alaska’s rural
districts teach several subjects. Under new federal standards,
to claim “highly qualified teacher” credentials they would have
to hold bachelor’s degrees in each subject they teach or pass
tests that show full knowledge of all the topics.
States are reporting widely varying starting points as they
make public the percentage of classes taught by “highly
qualified teachers,” those who have bachelor’s degrees,
state certification and demonstrated mastery of every sub
ject they teach.
Democrats, White House joust
over record $374 billion deficit
Law & Order: RAU
Responsible Aggie Unit
Aggie Alcohol Awareness Week 2003
TODAY!
Texas Governor Rick Perry
Speaking at
Training Stations: Alcohol 101 Plus
MSC Flag room 11 AM - 2 PM
TONIGHT!
Dinner Theatre
Sbisa Dining Hall 6 PM - 7 PM
Sponsored by Walton Hall
> S lii
■
-isiiitp
THE CHOICE IS UI> TO YOU. ^
A\AKE RESPONSIBLE DECISIONS. For More Into
Http://studentlife.tamu.edu/adep (979) 845-0280
WASHINGTON (AP) — New Bush administration figures (hat
show a record $374.2 billion deficit for the federal budget yea:
that just ended prove that the president’s economic policies have
shoved the country in the wrong direction, Democrats say.
White House officials and their Republican congressional allies
counter that the numbers show just the opposite: The economy is
on the mend, even as deficit still has further up to go.
The political fencing, barely a year before the next presiden
tial and congressional elections, came as the White House's
Office of Management and Budget announced the final 2003
deficit figure Monday.
Because the figures were lower than the White House’s July pro
jection of $455 billion, administration officials cited it as evidence that
their attempts to fortify the weak economy were working.
Woman recalls seeing headless
child's body in Rubio murder trial
BROWNSVILLE, Texas (AP) — A woman sobbed Monday as she
recalled entering her friends’ apartment and finding the body of their
1-year-old son lying headless and naked on a bed, the father appear
ing drugged and the two other children nowhere in sight.
Mary Elena Alvarez was one of seven witnesses to testify during
the first day of the capital murder trial of John Allen Rubio. The 23-
year-old is accused of killing and decapitating the children, two of
which were his own, with the help of his common-law wife.
Rubio’s attorneys entered pleas of not guilty by reason of insan
ity to the four-count grand jury indictment naming Rubio in the
murder of 3-year-old Julissa Quezada, 1-year-old John Esthefan
Rubio and 2-month-old Mary Jane Rubio.
Officials have not determined whether 23-year-old Angela
Camacho, the mother of all three victims, is mentally competent
to stand trial.
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