Skeptical of progress from "bipartisan" meeting

The administration is clearly trying to indicate it hopes to make real strides toward hammering out health care legislation during Thursday's bipartisan meeting, but does anyone out there really expect meaningful progress to come out of the meeting? Can you really put 20+ elected officials from both parties and both houses in the same room and have a constructive session on such a divisive subject? These people have elections to think about, for gosh sake.

Here's roughly how I see this shaking out: The President will open and moderate discussion on four critical topics: insurance reforms, cost containment, expanding coverage, and the impact health reform legislation will have on deficit reduction. Both sides will disagree on all topics.

Following the meeting there will be sound bites from both Republican and Democratic leaders, each essentially accusing the other side as living in a fantasy world or catering to the interests of the wealthy and big insurers.

And the debates rages… or crawls… on.