The health care summit organized by the White House ended as a fiasco. The Republicans and the Democrats could not reach an agreement about how to reform health care. It’s too early to say if the American public was more convinced by Obama‘s detailed exposition of policy or the Republicans’ same visceral argument in favor of the insurance industry and supports limits on medical malpractice lawsuits.

So far, despite the fact that the president was open to new ideas from his political opponents, we have seen the same old political tactic of obstruction. There were almost no new ideas. The question is, why did the Republicans even show up at the summit if they did not have anything to offer? They have confirmed again their intentions to see the president fail. It is just unbelievable to see on national TV. Meanwhile, the health care system will stay broken. As the Hausa of Cameroon say, “An empty hand doesn’t kill a snake.”