Hayes: Media, conservatives don't get that U.S. has changed

On Wednesday night's The Rachel Maddow Show, Rachel and Chris Hayes of MSNBC's Up with Chris Hayes took on the recent outcry in Washington over, of all things, birth control. Conservatives claim that it's unfair that a provision of the Affordable Health Care Act mandates insurance coverage for contraceptives, a measure that some Catholic institutions like hospitals and universities find objectionable.

During the discussion, Hayes pointed out that time and again, Republicans react with "hysteria" over parts of the bill that they portray as draconian interventions by the "jack-booted" state into the affairs of businesses and individuals. The truth, he said, is that most of the measures and provisions in the bill are more suggestions that states adopt programs which many of them have already implemented.

The two hosts agreed that administration went out of its way to make most of the Affordable Health Care Act's guidelines "small-c conservative," fitting them in with established precedent. In Washington, however, opponents of the law would rather see their candidates run on "culture war" issues that the electorate resolved long ago.

Watch the clip, embedded via MSNBC, below:

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