Chris Hayes: Boehner's Medicare plan less popular than mandatory gay marriages

Filling in for MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes explained Wednesday night that provisions of the budget plan presented by House Speaker John Boehner were wildly unpopular, even among Republican voters.

Hayes joked that forcing Americans to wed someone of the same gender would probably be more popular than Boehner's plan to reform Medicare. He noted that recent polling had found 79 percent of Americans wanted Congress to leave the popular program alone.

Boehner has proposed raising the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67. However, nearly 67 percent of Americans oppose that plan. Even a large majority of Republicans voters are against raising the eligibility age, Hayes pointed out.

Hayes described how Boehner obscured his proposal to raise the eligibility age, since doing so would be politically harmful.

"John Boehner may be many things, but he is not stupid," the liberal MSNBC host said. "He understands the bind he is in. His party is ideologically antagonistic to Medicare. It is also generously funded by lots of people who would like to see Medicare dissolved. And it is also a party that -- get this -- won people on Medicare by 12 points in the last election, even though they lost the election overall by three points."

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