An NBC News/poll yesterday showed continued growth in support for a public option . Voters want meaningful health care reform with choices for consumers that don't leave them to the mercies of avaricious insurance companies. And as support for the public option grows, approval of GOP obstructionism on health care remains steady at just over 20%, while around 65% of Americans disapprove of the way the Republican congressional caucus is handling the health care debate. It's counterintuitive than dozens of weak, frightened Democrats are joining the Republicans in their opposition.Let's leave Lieberman's possibly toothless attention -grabbing threat to join the filibuster of health care reform alone for a moment and assume Harry Reid can work that out with him. And let's close our eyes and imagine that Reid already told Blanche Lincoln that if she makes one more peep about filibustering she's out of her Ag Committee chairmanship. And let's even leave Ben Nelson's demand that the "opt out" (which is bad enough) be changed to an "out in" (which is intolerable ). Why? Because we have to deal with the House first and we're not 100% there yet-- not for the public option with a reimbursement rate of Medicare + 5%, the most ideal position left on the table.Democratic Whip Jim Clyburn says there are 47 hard no votes among conservative Democrats as well as 8 more leaning in that direction (55 in all). There are 256 Democrats-- so 201 after the 55 who have announced they will be crossing the aisle to vote with the Republicans against meaningful health care reform. Far be from me to second-guess Clyburn's numbersanother good source has given me a list of the hard no votes and the undecided votes. First the 43 for sure no votes: John Barrow (Blue Dog-GA-12)Brian Baird (D-WA-3)Melissa Bean (D-IL-8)Marion Berry (Blue Dog-AR-1)John Adler (D-NJ-3)Dan Boren (Blue Dog-OK-02)Jason Altmire (Blue Dog-PA-4)Rick Boucher (D-VA-9)Allen Boyd (Blue Dog-FL-02)Bobby Bright (Blue Dog-AL-02)Ben Chandler (Blue Dog-KY-06)Travis Childers (Blue Dog-MS-01)Jim Cooper (Blue Dog-TN-05)Kathy Dahlkemper (Blue Dog-PA-03)Lincoln Davis (Blue Dog-TN-04)Joe Donnelly (Blue Dog-IN-2)Bart Gordon (Blue Dog-TN-06)Parker Griffith (Blue Dog-AL-05)Debbie Halvorson (D-IL-11)Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (Blue Dog-TX-01)Baron Hill (Blue Dog-IN-09) Tim Holden (Blue Dog-PA-17)Steve Kagen (D-WI-08)Frank Kratovil (Blue Dog-MD-1)Betsy Markey (D-CO-04)Jim Marshall (Blue Dog-GA-08)Jim Matheson (Blue Dog-UT-02)Mike McIntyre (Blue Dog-NC-7)Michael McMahon (D-NY-13)Charlie Melancon (Blue Dog-LA-03)Mike Michaud (Blue Dog-ME-02)Walt Minnick (Blue Dog-ID-01)Harry Mitchell (Blue Dog-AZ-05)Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN-07)Earl Pomeroy (Blue Dog-SD-01)Mike Ross (Blue Dog-AR-04)Heath Shuler (Blue Dog-NC-11)Ike Skelton (D-MO-04)Zack Space (Blue Dog-OH-18) Bart Stupak (D-MI-01)John Tanner (Blue Dog-TN-08)Gene Taylor (Blue Dog-MS-04)Harry Teague (D-NM-02)On top of that Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ-01) is leaning no. But there are another 10 Democrats, most of whom are Blue Dogs, leaning yes as of last night:Dennis Cardoza (Blue Dog-CA-18)Jim Costa (Blue Dog-CA-20)Gabby Giffords (Blue Dog-AZ-08)Ron Klein (D-FL-22)Daniel Lipinski (D-IL-03)Dan Maffei (D-NY-25)Scott Murphy (D-NY-20)Glenn Nye (Blue Dog-VA-02)Loretta Sanchez (Blue Dog-CA-47)David Scott (Blue Dog-VA-03)If any of these are your congressmembers, it's worth calling their offices and telling them how important this vote is to you and your family. Keep in mind that this has been the Republican message and the Insurance Industry message (as well as their paid whores for months):

Labels: Blue Dogs, public option