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The Ly-6 locus encodes several cell surface proteins whose functions are unknown. Although it is hypothesized that these proteins may be receptors, there is no direct evidence that they bind a ligand. Herein Thymocytes were fixed with 1% paraformaldehyde for 10 min at room temperature. Fixation was stopped by adding 10 ml of medium (RPMI 1640 medium, glutamine, and antibiotics) (Irvine Scientific) with 5% fetal calf serum. Cells were further washed three times and resuspended in culture medium (19).

In recent years, most health care markets in the United States (US) have experienced rapid penetration by health maintenance organizations (HMOs) and preferred provider organizations (PPOs). During this same period, the US has also experienced slowing health care costs. Using a national database, we demonstrate that HMOs and PPOs have significantly restrained cost growth among hospitals located in competitive hospital markets, but not so in the case of hospitals located in relatively concentrated markets. In relative terms, we estimate that HMOs have contained cost growth more effectively than PPOs.

Background: A variety of approaches have been used to contain escalating hospital costs. One approach is intensifying price competition. The increase in price based competition, which changes the incentives hospitals face, coupled with the fact that consumers can more easily evaluate the quality of hotel services compared with the quality of clinical care, may lead hospitals to allocate more resources into hotel rather than clinical services.

This DataWatch examines national trends in the provision of uncompensated hospital care. It shows that rapid growth from 1983-1986 was followed by modest growth through 1990, a time during which managed care was becoming established in some regions. There was then another spurt in uncompensated care from 1991-1993, a period that corresponds to sizable increases in disproportionate-share payments. Uncompensated care growth again slowed through 1995. The increase in uncompensated care levels after 1988 appears not to have kept pace with growth in hospital expenses or the number of uninsured. However, the trend data do not suggest a large-scale reduction of effort. B ECAUSE THE UNITED STATES lacks universal entitlement, the health care system relies on charitable care by medical providers to serve the 40.6 million uninsured.1 Hospitals, in particular, serve as providers of last resort, a role enforced through legal sanctions against turning away patients with life-threatening or urgent conditions. The $17.5 billion in hospitals' uncompensated care costs in 1995, which represented 6 percent of hospital expenses, is testament to hospitals' vital role in protecting access to care. Hospitals have been able to fund uncompensated care through a delicate balance of internal and external cross-subsidies. To a large extent, this balance depends on hospitals' ability to receive reimbursement from paying patients that exceeds the cost of treating those patients, a practice referred to as cost shifting. In a few states, these cross-subsidies are made explicit through uncompensated care trust funds as part of all-payer hospital rate-setting programs or through the establishment of indigent care subsidies that offset some of the costs of charity care.3 Explicit recognition of the burden ]oycc