A prescription for national health care reform.

Insurance systems for controlling costs--quality assurance, preadmission clearance, length-of-stay control--actually add to costs, and also subtract from the quality of patient care. Step one: Eliminate those systems.

Hyperlipidemia, hypercoagulability, and accelerated thrombosis: studies in congenitally hyperlipidemic rats and in rats and monkeys with induced hyperlipidemia.

Inbred Carworth Farms Nelson (CFN) congenitally hyperlipidemic rats had significantly shorter coagulation and prothrombin times and higher levels of coagulation factors, II, V, VII, VIII, and X than did controls. Conversely, congenitally hypolipidemic rats of the same strain had significantly longer coagulation and prothrombin times and lower levels of factors II, V, VII, X and XII and of blood platelets than did controls. A loop-shaped polyethylene cannula was inserted into the aorta to assess the potential for thrombosis.

Blood pressure, cholesterol content of serum and tissues and atherogenesis in the rat.

Rats on a stock diet with added cholesterol, cholic acid, and thiouracil developed increased concentrations of cholesterol, total lipide, and beta lipoprotein in the serum, and an increased content of cholesterol in the liver and carcass, despite the fact that the diet produced a cessation of endogenous cholesterol synthesis. Rats with high serum lipide concentrations developed intimal lesions similar to those of human atherosclerosis. The induction of hypertension by desoxycorticosterone and salt accelerated the development of hypercholesterolemia, hyperlipemia, increase in tissue cholesterol content, and atherosclerotic changes in the intima.