This study of Yale University School of Medicine's students' and graduates' attitudes toward currently pending national health legislation has attempted to avoid some of the methodological shortcomings of previous surveys. In the present study, 53 per cent of the respondents, including two-thirds of the graduates presently in office-based practices, would accept the AMA-sponsored Medicredit plan. In contrast, the Kennedy-Griffiths Act and the Nixon Administration's proposal to the 92nd Congress were each accepted by 10 per cent or fewer. Although Medicredit was the only plan presently acceptable to a majority of respondents, the striking fragmentation of opinions and the practical political realities indicate that more reform health legislation may be on the horizon. On the basis of a review of doctors' reactions to previous health laws, it is hypothesized that, if such reform legislation is enacted, American physicians, cither willingly or under duress, will modify their practices to conform to the new legality.