Operation Coffee Cup was a campaign conducted by the American Medical Association

American Medical Association

The American Medical Association , founded in 1847 and incorporated in 1897, is the largest association of medical doctors and medical students in the United States.-Scope and operations:...

 (AMA) during the late 1950s and early 1960s in opposition to the Democrats'

Democratic Party (United States)

The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...

 plans to extend Social Security

Social Security (United States)

In the United States, Social Security refers to the federal Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance program.The original Social Security Act and the current version of the Act, as amended encompass several social welfare and social insurance programs...

 to include health insurance for the elderly, later known as Medicare

Medicare (United States)

Medicare is a social insurance program administered by the United States government, providing health insurance coverage to people who are aged 65 and over; to those who are under 65 and are permanently physically disabled or who have a congenital physical disability; or to those who meet other...

. As part of the plan, doctors' wives would organize coffee meetings in an attempt to convince acquaintances to write letters to Congress

United States Congress

The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....

 opposing the program. The operation received support from Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan

Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....

, who in 1961 produced the LP record

LP record

The LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry...

 Ronald Reagan Speaks Out Against Socialized Medicine

Ronald Reagan Speaks Out Against Socialized Medicine

Ronald Reagan Speaks Out Against Socialized Medicine is a 1961 LP featuring Ronald Reagan. In this more than ten-minute recording, Reagan "criticized Social Security for supplanting private savings and warned that subsidized medicine would curtail Americans' freedom" and that "pretty soon your son...

for the AMA, outlining arguments against what he called "socialized medicine

Socialized medicine

Socialized medicine is a term used to describe a system for providing medical and hospital care for all at a nominal cost by means of government regulation of health services and subsidies derived from taxation. It is used primarily and usually pejoratively in United States political debates...

". This record would be played at the coffee meetings.

Former Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin

Sarah Louise Palin is an American politician, commentator and author. As the Republican Party nominee for Vice President in the 2008 presidential election, she was the first Alaskan on the national ticket of a major party and first Republican woman nominated for the vice-presidency.She was...

paraphrased Ronald Reagan from the 1961 album during the 2008 Vice-Presidential debate, "It was Ronald Reagan who said that freedom is always just one generation away from extinction. We don’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream; we have to fight for it and protect it, and then hand it to them so that they shall do the same, or we’re going to find ourselves spending our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children about a time in America, back in the day, when men and women were free."