I’ve been quiet for a while because I have been fighting some nasty toothaches that keep infecting.  I got an infection in my upper jaw last month (May) and went to see the doctor at the walk-in clinic in town.  Cost me a hundred bucks to get my ass chewed out for having bad teeth, lectured about how I need to see a dentist I can’t afford, and written a prescription for penicillin and some pain killers that barely touched the pain that I was feeling.

Once the bad tooth was taken care of I had to spend some time focusing on a bit of an emergency, and as soon as that was done with my family had multiple birthdays and father’s day all hitting one right after the other, then another birthday and still another birthday in about a week.  June is a very busy month for my family.

Right now it’s almost 4 in the morning and I am sitting up with a bad toothache waiting for pain medication to kick in so I can get back to sleep.  Figured I would get out here and get a post on the site since I knew it had been far too long since I made it out here.  I better get some more work done real fast, I’m working on cataloging what  sites I need to update based on daily, weekly, bi-weekly, or bi-monthly schedules.

The other day on CNN, Anderson Cooper 360 was talking about how congress was taking the time to decide what was going on with the Roger Clemens and Brian McNamee steroids issue. What caught my attention was when one of the congressmen said that they were not overlooking more important things as they talked about steroids use in sports… wait… excuse me? What coverage has been given to things such as H.R.1161? The bill that is seeking to amend title II of the Social Security Act. The bill that would credit prospectively individuals that are serving as caregivers of dependent relatives with deemed wages for up to five years of such service.

According to the Thomas search engine, the bill has been sitting in the Subcommittee on Social Security since March 7, 2007. Why has it taken a year for them to do anything with that bill? Is it really not as important as steroid use in sports?  Are they just going to leave it in subcommittee where it will be forgotten to die in congress?  That is what happened to H.R. 175 Family Caregiver Security Act 2005. That bill would have allowed family caregivers to have the same recognition as anyone else that did the work the family caregiver does. It died in congress…

Latest Major Action: 2/4/2005 Referred to House subcommittee.
Status: Referred to the Subcommittee on Health, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Chairman.

Apparently the chairman felt it was not important to discuss… I wonder what it was that they had to talk about that time? Why is it that things like steroid use in sports are so important that it has to be pounced on by congress, but someone that can not afford healthcare or medicine is ignored?  There have been multiple efforts to help those who sacrifice their own health for others, each case I have found has been shunted aside and ignored.  Where are the priorities of our congressmen?  Why is it that we have placed concern about sports ahead of concerns about people?

::shakes head::