Obama's Lisbon
The purpose and substance of Barack Obama's healthcare reform and the Lisbon Treaty are of course different, but there are nevertheless many similarities. Both promised to reinvigorate weakened or outdated structures by increasing the degree of solidarity; both looked like lost battles; both are being cited as world-changing events. At the same time, both documents are so long and so complicated that almost no one has read them. Critics say it took a Bolshevik-like mentality on the part of supporters to push them through. Neither has very strong backing from some of the very people they are supposed to serve and protect. Little by little we will learn what the documents actually mean. Will they produce huge costs without fixing the underlying problems? Will they - figuratively and literally - lead to the death of the very systems they are meant to save? Or is there a magic formula hidden somewhere in all the minutia for resurrecting a Euro-American civilization that has developed a very serious preexisting condition?
Glossary of difficult words
to reinvigorate - to give new energy or strength to;underlying - fundamental, basic;
minutia/minutiae - the small, precise or trivial details of something;
preexisting condition - a medical condition existing at a time when new insurance is applied for - typically, the cost of the treatment is not covered by the insurance (coverage of such medical conditions is one of the major issues in the debate over U.S. healthcare reform).