Thank you Urban Meyer!!

Wow! For all Florida fans and fans of any schools with former Florida assistants, that was a wild ride Saturday night and Sunday. I'm sure Louisville, Utah, and Oklahoma fans were having similar chest pains (pun intended) that I was having over this unusual situation. All of Bulldog Nation didn't know whether to cry or throw up. I watched ESPNEWS and followed Twitter and related blogs (thank you Kyle Veazey!) like my job depended on it for any bits of info leaking out from the Florida camp and possibly from the Dan Mullen camp. Dan seemed like a sure fit. He recruited most of their current players, knew all their offensive schemes and would easily slide right back into the Florida system. He obviously is turning his current team in a new direction and total attitude of leadership. His leadership is bleeding out of Starkville. Just go to a football game now in Starkvegas and you'll leave covered in maroon blood. It made perfect sense in my mind. But my heart screamed NOOOOO!!!!!!! And as the story progressed from resigning, to the scheduled press conference, to still never getting a straight answer on Coach Meyer's medical condition, and finally getting the leak that he's just taking a leave of absence, you could hear the collective bulldog nation suddenly start breathing again. As a physician, I and all my athletic prone doc friends are still totally bummfuzzled by what possible condition he may have, based on the limited symptoms he has stated and refuses to answer (that's another blog). And who knows if we may go through this again later this year. So many unknowns are still in this situation.

But...assuming this story stays as it is right now, the MSU Bulldogs came out riding so high. One word...recruiting. Who could ever have imagined this weird, theoretical, almost reality situation that literally almost put our coach as the head coach of Florida, one of the top football teams in the country! Imagine the potential 4-5 star recruits sitting in Jackson, Moss Point, Batesville (South Panola), and Hattiesburg looking on at this situation (least not forget the elephant in the room, Cameron Newton). So many little details tilt recruits one direction or another. Dan Mullen's profile and that of his current team has just been raised, again. This is only helpful for MSU. We should be hearing in the next few days from Cameron. Are you ready for 2010 MSU football? I am.


P.S. From Dixon, with love...

How the Senate Bill cuts costs...

How the Senate bill cuts costs

A closer look at five ways the health care overhaul would try to reduce spending.

By Melissa Attias

While the debate on the health care overhaul has focused on covering the uninsured, experts say the bill's efforts to control costs are equally important.

One reason they haven't gotten as much attention is that many are pilot programs.

As explained in a recent article in The New Yorker, no one knows exactly how to keep the cost of health care from continuing to grow, so the bill encourages experimentation with a number of new programs.

"This is not going to be a one-size-fits-all," said Ellen-Marie Whelan, senior health policy analyst and associate director of health policy at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank. "But all of these done in tandem is really going to move us to a new way of delivering health care."

to read on: http://www.congress.org/news/2009/12/22/how_the_senate_bill_cuts_costs

I think a more open competitive healthcare market is a much better plan than hoping pilot programs will give us healthcare reform and will reduce the deficit. The above article is still a good summary of the bill. More commentary later...

Healthcare Plan

So there’s one question about this whole healthcare reform proposal, The Affordable Health Care for America Act [H.R. 3962], that I have. How does the federal government force someone to buy something that they may or may not want? Even something as important as quality healthcare? Under the current bill recently passed by the U.S. House by a majority of only 5 votes, all people would be required to buy into either a private insurance plan or the public option. If you don’t, you’re taxed 2.5% of your gross income. I agree we need quality healthcare reform, I’m not arguing that point. It must be done, somehow, someway. But the fed is going to force you to buy something, and if you choose not to, they will tax you. “Shared responsibility” is what they are calling it. I suspect this issue, beyond all the other aspects of this bill, is going to be a constitutional point that will be forced to come before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Many services we take part in are taxed. The most stated example is driving and the road tax. But driving is a privilege given to us and we choose to drive. I choose to buy a bag of potatoes to eat with my steak tonight (also taxed and eating is a necessity). I guess I could start growing potatoes and raising cows in my back yard, yet it’s much easier to go to the store and pay the fed/state/county/city a little on top. My fear is that the Supreme Court will expand federal powers through the Commerce clause of the Constitution to validate this aspect of the current healthcare plan. But by doing this, the fed is very subtlety saying that we have a new civil right, healthcare. And we are taxing you now to provide this for everyone.