Water Polo slumping
Sports, page 24
Review at the Roxy
Life / Arts, page 9
Spotlight focuses on campus crime
Supplement, page 11
trojan
Volume CXIII, Number 39
University of Southern California
Tuesday, October 30,1990
Which way to Carl’s?
R. Antonio Garcia / Dally Trojan
One of the university’s resident pigeons strolls through Alumni Park on Monday searching for lunch. The university has made efforts to keep birds from outdoor campus eateries by hanging balloons designed to scare the fowl away.
USC may require health insurance
Mandatory student plan could begin by fall semester
By Janet Cavallo
Staff Writer
University officials are studying the feasibility of requiring students who have no health insurance to purchase a student health insurance plan as early as next fall, administrators said Monday.
A Student Health Insurance Advisory Committee composed of faculty, administrative staff and students is discussing potential improvements in the existing university program and ways to mandate insurance for students who do not have their own policy, said James Dennis, vice president of student affairs.
National figures indicate that 23 percent of college students are without insurance coverage. University officials said they believe that the percentage of uninsured students here is close to the national average.
Under a mandatory policy, those students would then be required to obtain an insurance policy. How much this kind of policy would cost is not yet known, officials said.
Students covered by their own plan or by a family plan would be able to obtain a
waiver excluding them from a university health plan, Dennis said.
A motive for improving the existing plan would be to limit the number of students who incur medical expenses great enough to force them to drop out.
"There are a number of students who suffer medically and financially because they don't have insurance," said Steve Gardner, executive director of Student Health and Counseling Services and committee member. "Even if it's a handful of people who are dropping out of school or getting secondhand medical care (because of a lack of insurance), a mandatory program would be worthwhile."
The health center provides routine care for illness, while an insurance policy would provide coverage for ailments requiring hospitalization or such ailments as severe abdominal pain and orthopedic emergencies, he said.
The health center's physicians usually have no choice but to refer uninsured students needing a hospital's services to "second-hand medical care" that will accept uninsured patients, Gardner said.
Incidents occur often enough to make the issue a problem, he said.
Earlier this semester, an uninsured female student with respiratory problems almost died because she waited for the health center to open rather than obtain medical care from another hospital she (See Insurance, page 8)
Students report theft in three different weekend incidents
By Brian McDonough
Staff Writer
Wade O'Marrow got into his Ford Escort on Saturday morning around 2:30 with a friend, on the 900 block of Adams Boulevard, when he heard the sound of an automatic pistol being cocked just outside his window.
"He had the gun pointed straight down, and I saw the bullet fly out of the clip into the chamber," O'Marrow , a junior majoring in poiitica! science, re-
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called. He said he recognized the gun as a 9mm Baretta, a powerful automatic handgun.
"I wasn't about to challenge him," he said.
Three men surrounded the car, demanding that O'Marrow and his friend surrender their valuables. O'Marrow said he
gave the men a watch and his iend gave them a ring and his wallet.
The three robbers began arguing among themselves over whether to shoot O'Marrow and his friend or not, O'Marrow said in a telephone interview Monday.
He said that one of the men
reached into the car and tried to et the keys out of the ignition ut was unable.
O'Marrow seized the opportunity to escape.
"I waited until the guy (with the gun) looked away, and I popped the clutch and hit the accelerator," he said. O'Morrow crouched down in the driver's seat, fearing the thief might fire at him.
This was one of three robberies, which occurred this week-
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north of campus. The suspect descriptions provided by the victims did not match.
Sunday night, a man armed with a "really, really long knife" stole a car from the parking lot of the Delta Delta Delta sorority, forcing the driver out of the vehicle, said Fleurette Barsom.
Barsom, a pre-business sophomore, said she, her mother, and her 8-year-old brother had just driven into the parking lot at around 8:30 p.m. She noticed a man enter the parking lot.
"He looked like a student — very clean cut, so I assumed he was visiting someone in the (See Crimes, page 17)
Seeking a greener future
Proposition 128 affects trees, water, air pollution
By Lore Unt
Staff Writer
Some call it the most comprehensive package of environmental reforms ever put on a California ballot. Others say it is a costly, unrealistic, environmental shopping list that could severely damage California's economy.
Both sides are referring to Proposition 128, the Environ-
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Proposition 128 could change how Californians grow food, purify water and control the quality of the air supply.
Julie Hopper, a spokeswoman for Dianne Feinstein, said the Democratic candidate for governor supports Proposition 128 because it will improve the quality of life for California residents by improving the environment.
"Feinstein thinks the initiative is worth the cost and feels California voters are willing to pay for it," Hopper said.
George Deukmajian, the current governor, and Pete Wilson, th£ Republican hopeful, oppose the initiative claiming its costs will overwhelm California taxpayers and businesses.
This is the first in a pre-election series of articles examining various initiatives on the California ballot.
"It would raise the costs of utilities, food, transportation
—	you name it," said James Lee, press secretary for the Wilson campaign. "It seeks to solve a whole range of envi-
ronmental problems with a sledgehammer approach, which is not the correct approach in an area of such sensitivity and complexity."
The cost to taxpayers, as predicted by California's legislative analyst, will be between $6 billion and $12 billion over 20 years.
Julie Duncan, a spokeswoman for the Environmental
Vote '90 Campaign, a coalition of environmental support groups, said estimates of Proposition 128's costs are inflated.
"California taxpayers are spending billions of dollars each year in health care costs due to air pollution alone," Duncan said. "Because the cost of Big Green is spread out over 20 years, a lump-sum figure is misleading.
"In the long run, it is more fiscally sound to stop pollution at its source, rather than to clean it up afterward," she (See Green, page 6)