Two Courts Halt Rule Tying Certain Drug Prices to Other Countries .Year after year, seniors are struggling with higher-priced groceries, copays, deductibles and prescription medications. To make matters worse, Republicans in Congress are passing bills that raise healthcare and housing costs for seniors. .Apply for Medicaid coverage while you wait. Check with a counselor at your local area Agency on Aging or local Medicaid department. Medicaid can take several months to start. .This will give them an additional week to try and get something done. If they can't by then, they'll either pass another short-term CR giving them additional time to work until probably Christmas, or they'll give up and go home for Christmas and push everything off to the new Congress and new President in January. .The report's release coincided with two days of high-level White House negotiations that President Obama recently held with Senate Democratic and Republican leaders over reducing the federal deficit, ahead of the pressing debt limit deadline. The attractiveness of the proposal is not only the aforementioned enormous savings to the federal government, but the ingenious political cover. The change appears miniscule, the savings to the government low at first, and it's so complicated nobody except a government economist would even claim to understand it. .Yet, millions of your fellow Americans, receive below poverty level checks adding to the wealth disparity and further eroding the middle-class. .Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has indicated he will not bring the bill up for a vote until he knows there are enough Republicans who support it so that it can pass. .But achieving bipartisan consensus on the next packages appears more difficult. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D- Calif.) says her starting point is up to trillion in aid that cash-strapped states and local governments need to prevent layoffs of first responders and other workers, and to help make up for lost revenues amid business closures. She also wants an infusion of funds for the postal system, which President Trump previously blocked. Also, on her list are provisions to expand voting by mail. .Because of the high air exchange rate, it's unlikely you'll catch the coronavirus from someone several rows away. However, you could still catch the virus from someone close by.