Health Reform, The Lilliputians, and Lack of Mobility

August 9, 2011 - President Obama’s current predicament reminds me of Gulliver’s Travels. The Lilliputians, each 1/12 the size of Gulliver, who by the way, was a surgeon, have tied him down with multiple tiny ropes. Gulliver is unable to move. He is immobilized.

Such is Obama's problem, at least that is how he perceives it. He blames his problems on the Lilliputians– small-minded followers of Bush, narrow-thinking Tea Party activists, myopic advocates of smaller government, incompetent Standard and Poor’s officials – on his inability to move.

He attributes this immobility – this gridlock, this political paralysis, this bitter backbiting – on everybody but himself and his policies. He seems locked in a rigid, uprighteous position – that he is right and others are wrong. He seems to be a legend in his own mind, divorced from reality. What he lacks is bold action – a long overdue specific practical plan with a realistic budget – free of ideological trimmings.

Until then, America will suffer from a series of immobility crises.

• Hoarding of $2 trillion of cash that corporate America has set aside for a rainy day rather than creating new jobs.

• Resistance of small businesses to hire until they can clearly see how whole set of federal regulations and new taxes required by Obamacare will effect them, even threaten their existence.

• The inertia of the states as they wait to see if Obamacare will move forward or be repealed, possibly by a Supreme Court decision on its constitutionality.

• The unhappiness of Americans as they experience “downward motility “from the housing and stock market meltdown, with potential choking off of “upward mobility” in their futures.


• The dread of private physicians as they see themselves immobilized by intrusive regulations, restriction of clinical freedoms, and payment downgrades.

. The fear of ordinary citizens about future rationing, decision-making by bureaucrats rather than physicians, lack of access to medical care, and decline of quality.

Tweet: Obama, considers himself a giant among Lilliputians, tied down by Bush people, Tea Party activists, S&P incompetents. Why? He lacks a plan