"Right now, the most important task for us is to stabilize the patient."

"The economy is badly damaged — it is very sick. So we have to take whatever steps are required to make sure that it is stabilized." So says Obama.

It's an emergency. Get into the emergency frame of mind, which is stand back, don't interfere, accept that they gotta do what they gotta do. Obama is going with the full emergency metaphor: The economy is a patient who is "very sick," he's the doctor who must "stabilize" the patient by taking "whatever steps are required."