WASHINGTON NEWS

Medicare Shelved.—  The Administration's "medicare" bill was a major casualty of the 88th Congress.The House-Senate conference on the King-Anderson bill and other Social Security changes was not able to resolve differences on the issue of hospitalmedical care financing for the aging. As a result, Congress adjourned without any final action on the legislation.The controversial medicare measure had been one of the last remaining obstacles to congressional adjournment.The Senate conferees refused to budge from their position that the bill contain a hospital benefit plan. The Senate earlier had approved such a program by a 49 to 44 vote. The House conferees stood fast against King-Anderson.Although an impasse on the hospital provision had been expected, the decision of the Senate conferees not to bargain on the rest of the Social Security bill, which included increases in cash benefits, and to abandon the entire bill, came as a surprise.