�鶹Ů��

The window is closing for congressional leaders to avert the double-digit premium hikes that are set to hit 8 million Medicare enrollees next year. Congress has only a handful of weeks to prevent the 52 percent premium hikes — the largest in the program’s history — that will harm seniors and drain state budgets. And with a key deadline missed on Thursday, aides of both parties say a deal between House leaders by year’s end is becoming less likely. (Ferris, 10/18)

Congressional Republicans are trying to project confidence, particularly Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, whose “no shutdown, no debt default” vows are paramount to his party’s hopes of maintaining Senate control in 2016. But the Senate GOP has a major uphill battle: McConnell lacks a stable negotiating partner in the House and conservative forces in both chambers already are agitated about making sacrifices in any bipartisan compromise. But Democrats have flatly refused to entertain changes to Social Security or Medicare — a key demand for many congressional Republicans. (Everett, 10/19)

Months of deadly mass shootings are pushing mental-health legislation forward in Congress, with advocates and lawmakers describing a momentum for change that they haven’t seen for nearly a decade. Early this month, by sheer coincidence, leaders of five advocacy groups met with the head of a powerful House committee just hours after a student opened fire at an Oregon community college. As pictures of the campus flashed on the TV screen in his office, Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R.-Mich.) promised to make mental-health reform a priority this fall. (Sun, 10/18)