CRITICS of the health care reform plan often refer to it derisively as “ObamaCare.” On the policy merits, this is highly questionable: the White House has taken a hands-off approach toward the legislation that recently passed in the House and the version that is being worked out in the Senate. But when it comes to politics, “ObamaCare” could hardly be more apt: lawmakers’ support for or opposition to reform generally has less to do with the views of their constituents and more to do with the issue of presidential popularity.

Consider, for instance, the 39 Democrats who voted against the bill in the House, which approved the health care bill by a margin of 220 to 215. According to data compiled by The New York Times, 31 of the 39 Democratic naysayers hail from districts that John McCain won last November. Although the upper chamber has a reputation for being less rigidly constrained by near-term political considerations, odds are that the same calculus will prevail in the Senate.

We’ve crunched some poll numbers in order to relate senators’ positions on the bill to public opinion in their home states. First, we rated each of the 100 senators from 1 to 5, based on their public statements and their committee votes on the health care initiative, with 1 meaning completely opposed (like Jim DeMint of South Carolina) and 5 meaning completely supporting the bill (like Barbara Boxer of California).

Image Credit... Kim Bost

We then compared these scores against several statistical indicators that would presumably affect lawmakers’ positions, including their party affiliations and the rate of uninsurance in their home states. We also looked at polling data from the National Annenberg Election Surveys, which asked voters in each state: “Providing health insurance for people who do not already have it  should the federal government spend more on it, the same as now, less, or no money at all?” (The Annenberg data are from 2000 and 2004; 2008 data have yet to be released.)