Stlrs4Life
07-18-2010, 12:24 AM
Yeah Gov't Healthcare doesn't work, nah, there crazy:
Ask your Boy Cheyney if it works:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-07-15/multiple-heart-attacks-how-dick-cheney-keeps-going/
He’s had five heart attacks, and could soon seek a transplant. Dr. Kent Sepkowitz on the extraordinary history of Dick’s ticker—and how government health care keeps him alive. Thursday’s news that former Vice President Dick Cheney had received a left ventricular assist device, or LVAD, is the latest installment in America’s longest-running medical drama, a story extending back to 1978, when Cheney had his first of five heart attacks. With the insertion of the LVAD, Cheney has completed a rare quadrifecta of heart procedures, costing about a half of million dollars in all—and led left-wingers, cardiologists, and left-wing cardiologists to wonder how a man with such a bad metaphoric and anatomic heart can keep on kicking. Or as Firesign Theater once famously asked of George Tirebiter, "How does an old man like you stay alive?"
But before going to the actuarial tables, we need to review his truly remarkable medical history—keeping in mind all the while that what we know about Dick and his heart is of uncertain accuracy. After all, Cheney is a maniacally secretive man famous for such tours de force as stonewalling attempts to discover what his National Energy Policy Development Group, aka the energy task force, was up to in the early months of his vice presidency. So it does seem rather odd that the one set of facts he actually is entitled by law to keep his trap shut about—his medical history—is the only area for which he readily has given up total unfiltered information.
Cheney’s miraculous longevity is… exhibit A in the argument for intrusive and overarching government programs to ensure the public’s health.
The heart has four main parts, each relatively independent of the other, each with its unique roster of ailments and remedies. Cheney has had serious problems with three of them. First there are the valves, those mechanical open-close governors of forward blood flow. People with valve problems develop heart murmurs and may eventually need valve replacement. To date, this is the only part of Cheney’s heart still in tip-top shape.
Next is the wiring, the nerves that control rate and rhythm, referred to as the conducting system. Dick, alas, has had some difficulties here. There are two basic flavors of heart rhythm problems—“atrial,” including the common condition atrial fibrillation; or ventricular, which may manifest as the often-fatal ventricular tachycardia, or, worse yet, ventricular fibrillation. Cheney has required electrical shocks twice for the atrial problem (not cheap) and in 2001 implantation of an automatic implantable cardioverter defibrillator (AICD) (call it $25,000-$30,000) to respond to any ventricular turbulence.
The third component of the average heart is the set of coronary arteries, the blood vessels that feed blood to the heart itself. Trouble here can require coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery, which Cheney underwent in 1988; he received a quadruple bypass, probably reflecting the widespread nature of his arterial narrowing ($100,000 to $200,000). In 2000, at the height of the Florida non-recount, one of these arteries clotted off, resulting in his fourth heart attack and the need for a stent—a stiff pipe placed to pry the artery open and maintain its capacity (also not cheap).
Finally, this month, he needed help to treat the fourth component of the heart: the muscle. The heart muscle does what the heart does—it pumps blood forward. When the heart can no longer do this adequately, the condition is called heart failure. And in the last few months, Cheney has developed intractable heart failure. The best remedy for severe heart failure is a heart transplant, which, according to the Los Angeles Times (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sc-dc-0716-cheney-20100715,0,1624548.story), Cheney is considering. But for those who need help before a heart is available, or for whom a transplant is too risky, we have a gizmo called the left ventricular assist device, a $200,000 item. The LVAD (http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=4599) is a cumbersome almost-artificial heart that requires the recipient to wear heavy batteries, a shoulder sling with various parts, tubes going through the chest and into the heart and abdomen, and other substantial inconveniences. It helps push a portion of the heart’s blood forward, doing the work the failing ventricle no longer can accomplish. Once used only to stabilize people awaiting heart transplant, it now is referred to, not ironically, as a “destination therapy”—the exact intervention that you want, not the half-assed loaner you are stuck with till the real McCoy arrives.
Ask your Boy Cheyney if it works:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-07-15/multiple-heart-attacks-how-dick-cheney-keeps-going/
He’s had five heart attacks, and could soon seek a transplant. Dr. Kent Sepkowitz on the extraordinary history of Dick’s ticker—and how government health care keeps him alive. Thursday’s news that former Vice President Dick Cheney had received a left ventricular assist device, or LVAD, is the latest installment in America’s longest-running medical drama, a story extending back to 1978, when Cheney had his first of five heart attacks. With the insertion of the LVAD, Cheney has completed a rare quadrifecta of heart procedures, costing about a half of million dollars in all—and led left-wingers, cardiologists, and left-wing cardiologists to wonder how a man with such a bad metaphoric and anatomic heart can keep on kicking. Or as Firesign Theater once famously asked of George Tirebiter, "How does an old man like you stay alive?"
But before going to the actuarial tables, we need to review his truly remarkable medical history—keeping in mind all the while that what we know about Dick and his heart is of uncertain accuracy. After all, Cheney is a maniacally secretive man famous for such tours de force as stonewalling attempts to discover what his National Energy Policy Development Group, aka the energy task force, was up to in the early months of his vice presidency. So it does seem rather odd that the one set of facts he actually is entitled by law to keep his trap shut about—his medical history—is the only area for which he readily has given up total unfiltered information.
Cheney’s miraculous longevity is… exhibit A in the argument for intrusive and overarching government programs to ensure the public’s health.
The heart has four main parts, each relatively independent of the other, each with its unique roster of ailments and remedies. Cheney has had serious problems with three of them. First there are the valves, those mechanical open-close governors of forward blood flow. People with valve problems develop heart murmurs and may eventually need valve replacement. To date, this is the only part of Cheney’s heart still in tip-top shape.
Next is the wiring, the nerves that control rate and rhythm, referred to as the conducting system. Dick, alas, has had some difficulties here. There are two basic flavors of heart rhythm problems—“atrial,” including the common condition atrial fibrillation; or ventricular, which may manifest as the often-fatal ventricular tachycardia, or, worse yet, ventricular fibrillation. Cheney has required electrical shocks twice for the atrial problem (not cheap) and in 2001 implantation of an automatic implantable cardioverter defibrillator (AICD) (call it $25,000-$30,000) to respond to any ventricular turbulence.
The third component of the average heart is the set of coronary arteries, the blood vessels that feed blood to the heart itself. Trouble here can require coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery, which Cheney underwent in 1988; he received a quadruple bypass, probably reflecting the widespread nature of his arterial narrowing ($100,000 to $200,000). In 2000, at the height of the Florida non-recount, one of these arteries clotted off, resulting in his fourth heart attack and the need for a stent—a stiff pipe placed to pry the artery open and maintain its capacity (also not cheap).
Finally, this month, he needed help to treat the fourth component of the heart: the muscle. The heart muscle does what the heart does—it pumps blood forward. When the heart can no longer do this adequately, the condition is called heart failure. And in the last few months, Cheney has developed intractable heart failure. The best remedy for severe heart failure is a heart transplant, which, according to the Los Angeles Times (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sc-dc-0716-cheney-20100715,0,1624548.story), Cheney is considering. But for those who need help before a heart is available, or for whom a transplant is too risky, we have a gizmo called the left ventricular assist device, a $200,000 item. The LVAD (http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=4599) is a cumbersome almost-artificial heart that requires the recipient to wear heavy batteries, a shoulder sling with various parts, tubes going through the chest and into the heart and abdomen, and other substantial inconveniences. It helps push a portion of the heart’s blood forward, doing the work the failing ventricle no longer can accomplish. Once used only to stabilize people awaiting heart transplant, it now is referred to, not ironically, as a “destination therapy”—the exact intervention that you want, not the half-assed loaner you are stuck with till the real McCoy arrives.