Today's new word--Myocardial Infarction

This isn't a new word, but when I see it in print I do slow down--sort of like a "detour ahead" or Big funny words ahead. A myocardial infarction is a heart attack, and ischemia is lack of oxygen to the heart muscle cells, which may have been caused by plaque, a build up of fatty junk, in the arteries which supply the blood to the heart.

Whether or not you listen to Rush Limbaugh, heart attacks (myocardial infarction) have been in the news, either because you heard his confirmation of the excellent care he received from EMTs and at a hospital in Hawaii after experiencing severe chest pain (including aspirin and nitroglycerin tablet before getting to the hospital) or you heard one of the many MSM talkers complaining that he had politicized his emergency by announcing the U.S. has the best health care in the world.



Actually, that's not at all political--although the liberal talkers made it that way. First of all, heart disease is the leading cause of death because our excellent health care and research have pushed it to the top by eliminating so many of the childhood diseases that used to kill or weaken us--scarlet fever, polio, early onset diabetes, measles, etc. Both liberals and conservatives and libertarians should be able to agree that there are many health concerns that only the federal government can tackle--like clean water and air, safe highways, speed limits, and food purity, etc. The political challenge comes in deciding how far can you go in eliminating all risk without destroying people's ability to earn a living so they don't succumb to other health problems--like starvation and freezing for instance.

Secondly, I can't recall ever talking to anyone in the last decade who was rushed to the ER with chest pains who didn't rave about the near miraculous care they received. While Rush was explaining the procedures as he remembered them, a cardiologist from central Illinois called the show (that's called "down state" for those of you not from that area since Chicago overwhelms everything else) and reported that what Rush described was exactly what anyone would receive at his small hospital, regardless of insurance, gender, or celebrity. Rush put his emergency care on his credit card because he's one of the millions of Americans who chooses not to use health insurance, which is his right at this time, but will not be under the new PORK (Pelosi-Obama-Reid-Kennedy) Plan. Liberals continue to quote inaccurate stats--it's not 47 million--and the PORK Plan will not cover all the 10% of our citizens who currently do not have insurance because of choice, neglect to sign up, or being between jobs, or lack of money. Also, no health plan in the world will make Rush exercise more or lose weight or stop smoking cigars--that's the same option we all have regardless of our insurance, lectures from the family doctor, or New Year's Resolutions. He loves his steak, his exercise seems to be limited to golf outings and jaw boning, and he probably doesn't like vegetables. Everyone should know Yo-Yo dieting is unhealthy, but he's a poster child for that method of weight control.

However, he's right about our quality of care. He was treated immediately and didn't need a queue for tests to return when the damage was unrepairable. A free-market economy, whether for heart attacks or building automobiles or publishing on the Internet, is the healthiest way to go for Americans. It is our regulators, unions, creeping socialism in every aspect of life, and our federal bureaucracy that are increasingly plugging up the arteries of our economy with fatty barriers.

BTW, if you google "Myocardial infarction Rush Limbaugh" you get only one hit (now there will be two)--I think it was Money Times (it reports he makes about $50 million a year). You have to use "heart attack" to get all the articles, bizarre comments and smear attacks. That one source linked to over 3,000 that used other language.