Jeffrey St. Onge

In 1961, the American Medical Association (AMA) funded a persuasive campaign called Operation Coffeecup. The campaign, which was designed to defeat Medicare, featured a speech by a young Ronald Reagan outlining the dangers of " socialized medicine. " The speech was recorded on a long-play record and distributed to the Women's Auxiliary of the AMA, a group primarily composed of the wives of doctors who were instructed to write seemingly spontaneous letters to Congress detailing their opposition to the program. This essay investigates Operation Coffeecup mainly through a rhetorical analysis of Reagan's speech. I argue that " socialized medicine " drew upon a problematic articulation of American culture that privileges the individual at the expense of the larger community. I conclude by discussing the thread of individualism that has persisted in the United States from the pre-Depression era mythos of rugged individualism to neoliberal discourses that shape debates about health policy today. In the early 1960s, after nearly thirty years focused on radio, television, and fılm, Ronald Reagan made a career change. He had begun the decade as the JEFFREY ST. ONGE is Assistant Professor of Communication Studies at Defıance College in Defıance, Ohio. He wishes to thank Martin Medhurst and the anonymous reviewers for their careful reading and insightful suggestions for this essay.

This essay traces the rhetorical history of ''socialized medicine,'' offering an explanation for, and critique of, its pervasiveness in contemporary health care debates. My analysis focuses on the well-organized and well-financed lobbying effort by the American Medical Association aimed at defeating reforms during the New Deal era. I focus on how the persistence of ''socialized medicine'' as a naturalized term in contemporary discourse functions to reinforce a mythic perspective of U.S. democracy as primarily individualistic and resistant to programs aimed at benefiting the larger community. Ultimately, the essay seeks to facilitate critical reflection on this problematic term for the sake of enriching democratic practice in the present.