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One of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s longtime dreams seems to be coming true: He’s on a potentially winning president’s team, and he’s pretty sure he’ll get a top-ranking job out of it. But his ascension in Trump’s orbit has triggered alarm from leaders in the industry and even from some former GOP health officials who fear that Kennedy’s history of vaccine skepticism could delegitimize Trump’s genuine health care goals — or eclipse his previous health care wins, like a record-breaking vaccine effort. (Owermohle, 10/18)

Donald Trump is rounding down when it comes to his age. “I'm not 80, and I'm not that close to 80,” the 78-year-old former president said during a friendly town hall in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, on Sunday. Trump made the comments after Right Side Broadcasting Network host Sage Steele asked him about his recent sit-down with the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board. [Scroll down to our op/ed section to read the story.] He called the resulting piece a “beautiful story” because it concluded he had zero signs of mental decline. (Leonard, 10/20)

Entering the final stretch of the presidential race, Vice President Kamala Harris is focusing on a simple message that she believes will resonate with undecided swing state voters: that former President Trump mentally unfit for office. Her argument is partly that the 78-year-old Trump has lost mental acuity on account of his advanced age, as was the chief line of attack that pushed President Biden from the race. (Rector, 10/18)

Democrats pushed to get a constitutional amendment on New York’s ballot because they believed it could energize liberals eager to protect abortion rights. Republicans are now hoping the same amendment will ignite a fire under people upset about transgender athletes participating in girls’ and women’s sports. Voters will decide Nov. 5 whether to approve the state’s proposed “Equal Rights Amendment,” which has already been the subject of a court fight over its broad language. The amendment, called “Proposition 1” on the ballot, has emerged as one of the more unusual ideological battles of the 2024 election season, partly because of disagreements about what it will do if passed. (Izaguirre, 10/20)

Denver voters this year will decide whether to toss a financial lifeline to the city’s safety net hospital and health system, Denver Health. The system serves a disproportionately low-income population both in its hospital and through a network of community and school-based clinics. But it has been struggling with higher amounts of what is known as uncompensated care — care that a hospital provides but does not receive payment for. That has placed the hospital in a more precarious financial position. (Ingold, 10/21)