The August, 1996 issue of consumer reports contained satisfaction ratings for various health maintainance organizations used by readers of the magazine. Describing the survey, the editors say on p 40, "The ratings are based on more than 20,000 responses to our 1995 Annual Questionaire about experiences in HMO's between May 1994 and April 1995. Those results reflect experiences of consumer reports subscribers, who are more affluent and educated cross section of the US population" Answer the general questions about target population, sampling frame, and units of this survey. Also, do you think that this survey provides valuable information for comparing health plans? If you were selecting an HMO for yourself, which information would you rather have: results from this survey or results from customer satisfaction surveys conducted by the individual HMOs?