Rabies Prevention Tips

The summer season brings with it many outdoor activities to enjoy including hiking, camping and picnicking. It is wise to be aware of your surroundings and to understand the possibility of encountering bats while exploring the outdoors, and even the possibility of encountering a bat in your own home.

Bats often reside in undisturbed areas such as eve troughs, attics and crawl spaces. So long as they remain there and cannot gain access to the living space of buildings there is no immediate health hazard. However, if bats can gain access to the living space of buildings, particularly areas where people sleep, the risk of exposure to rabies is significantly elevated.

Rabies is an infectious disease that affects the nervous system and is always fatal once symptoms develop. It is transmitted through the bite of an infected animal. Most human cases of rabies in the Unites States are due to prior bat exposure, and in most cases direct contact with bats is not documented.

Bites from bats may be so minor as to not wake persons who are sleeping when the bite occurs.

To keep bats from entering your home, do not leave unscreened windows or doors open to the outside, eliminate attic access to living spaces, make sure window screens are in good repair and keep up with routine maintenance on the exterior of your home.

Keeping your home in good repair by caulking and sealing exterior holes and making sure attic vents are screened can minimize the likelihood of a bat encounter. Bats have been known to enter homes through openings as small as a pencil.

If a bat or bats are identified in a room where people sleep, please take the following actions:

1. Immediately move residents in the home to a bat free building
2. Contact your local health department to help determine your risk of rabies exposure
3. Begin work to exclude bats from the building
4. Do NOT repopulate the building until you are certain all bats are excluded

For more information, please visit: http://www2.wataugademocrat.com/story/Health_Department_offers_rabies_prevention_tips_id_003446

How federal health care reform will impact Wisconsin

Health care. It is one of the most basic needs for all citizens, yet there are citizens who do not have access to quality care for various reasons.

In response to this need, the federal government enacted the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act last month to help those vulnerable citizens get coverage.

There have been many who criticize the merits - and the legality - of this set of bills. In particular, Wisconsin Attorney General J. B. Van Hollen requested permission from state leaders to join with other state attorney generals to file suit contesting the constitutionality of the bills.

However, most agree these bills will make sweeping changes across the nation with effects varying depending on each state.

For example, while Wisconsin has always been a leader in health care, Department of Health Services spokesperson Seth Boffeli said the state will still need to make adjustments to meet the new national health care standards.

The bills

The House of Representatives first passed the Affordable Health Care for America Act in November 2009 as a means of reforming the U.S. health care system, but this bill did not make it past the Senate. Instead, the Senate crafted the PPACA, which the House then passed, along with the HCERA to amend parts of the PPACA.

The PPACA prohibits insurance companies from rating customers based on preexisting health conditions or current health status, and it set up a national "health insurance exchange" where qualifying insurance companies can be listed on a marketplace for consumers to browse the best coverage option.

This bill also forms a public health insurance option to ensure competition, allow for unmarried older children to stay on their parents’ insurance up to age 26 and offer small businesses and low-income residents tax credits to help them afford coverage.

The HCERA also makes such amendments to the PPACA as increasing tax credits to buy insurance, closing the Medicare Part D coverage gap, giving seniors a $250 rebate and having the government pay the total costs of Medicaid expansion from 2014 until 2016, when the percentage will decrease incrementally to 90 percent after 2019.

"As I looked across the well of the House, I saw so many of my colleagues tearing up because I think like me they sense the … history of this vote, the history of this moment," U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis. said in a video statement following the PPACA floor vote.

However, U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis. did not share Baldwin's opinion of the bills and criticized the government's "power grab" during the March 21 floor debate.

"Health care affects each and every one of us. It is the most personal thing there is. And yet, here we are debating whether the government should have a bigger role in making those decisions," Ryan said.

For more information please visit: http://badgerherald.com/news/2010/04/28/how_federal_health_c.php