>>John, I've seen about a dozen surveys done in the last year, and about the same number back in 2010. All of them had similar findings: that either a majority or a strong majority of U.S. physicians opposed the mandate and opposed AHCA. I dare say you will not find many surveys (or any at all) that don't show an increasing distaste for the law.

Go and check out how many physicians responded to each one. The one you quoted is a *big* example with 3K responses. Out of >900K physicians. IOW tiny and unrepresentative.

>>My reference to the AMA is because there's a perception that AMA's support of AHCA "proves" that physicians back AHCA. AMA has been losing membership for years and their support of AHCA led to further defections.

AMA has 217K members, down from 278K in its heyday in the early 2000s. Still seems to me the AMA can't be written off if you want to treat self-selected surveys with 3K responses or less, as gospel.

>>Your "axe to grind" line is nothing but a pretext to try to discredit any non-positive information.

You misunderstand. Why would a physician answer an email survey? They get unsolicited junk all the time. I ask again: why would a busy physician answer an email survey from somebody who is collecting stats for who knows what purpose? Only somebody with an axe to grind is motivated to take the time, or perhaps somebody retired with time on their hands. Did you check out the age profile? I'm with the 99% who press delete to all such approaches. You may try to discredit that, but how would you know?

>>I have a yes/no question for you: would you find the views of U.S. physicians on AHCA to be a critical factor?

A critical factor in what? All over the world physicians have learned the hard way that managers, lawyers and other shysters come and go like fireflies in an endeavor where physicians spend their entire working lives, with each firefly generation believing its unique genius will allow it to carve billions out of physician remuneration (but not their own.) So physicians are leery of any grand political scheme. Google what was proposed for Medicare and you'll get the flavor. I understand perfectly why physicians have concerns. But they haven't sabotaged it the way they tried to sabotage ICD-10, so I don't think they're as opposed as you'd like to think.