Medicare beneficiaries have escaped the jaws of the wolf but are not out of the woods yet. On April 7, the Centers for Medicare and Medicare Services announced that seniors will be able to keep their Medicare Advantage plans. Launched two decades ago, Medicare Advantage plans give seniors the option of receiving their Medicare benefits from private plans, instead of from the government directly.

Legacy Medicare, launched in 1965, is a complicated bureaucratic program that combines three offerings: Part A for costs related to hospital inpatient stays, Part B for physicians, and Part D for prescription drugs. Separately, each part has design flaws. For example, Part A has no out-of-pocket maximum! To protect themselves from unlimited hospital costs, legacy Medicare beneficiaries have to pay an extra premium for a supplemental policy, called Medigap.