I guess we should celebrate that there is a healthcare issue that's not blamed on the ACA!
Seriously, though, what makes this "a mess"? Medicare is subsidized, so the premium for B does not reflect the real cost. In addition, yearly increases are limited to protect the lower income beneficiaries. If we were to remove the subsidy this "hold harmless" issue would go away, but a large number of seniors would find health care unaffordable.
Health care in the US is expensive and still increasing in cost more than 2x the CPI. This problem might begin to go away when the CPI increases faster than health care inflation. That hasn't happened over the past 2 or 3 decades, so I'm not hopeful.
Seriously, though, what makes this "a mess"? Medicare is subsidized, so the premium for B does not reflect the real cost. In addition, yearly increases are limited to protect the lower income beneficiaries. If we were to remove the subsidy this "hold harmless" issue would go away, but a large number of seniors would find health care unaffordable.
Health care in the US is expensive and still increasing in cost more than 2x the CPI. This problem might begin to go away when the CPI increases faster than health care inflation. That hasn't happened over the past 2 or 3 decades, so I'm not hopeful.