The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has announced the first changes to Medicare Part D: 

Private health insurers sponsoring Medicare prescription drug plans will be allowed to offer no more than two plans next year, CMS Administrator Mark McClellan said on Monday, the Wall Street Journal reports. Insurers were allowed to offer three plans this year, but some beneficiaries have been overwhelmed by the number of choices, McClellan said. He said the two-plan limit should help simplify the drug benefit. "Two plans should be sufficient," he said. However, some insurers offering plans that fill coverage gaps in the drug benefit might be allowed to offer three plans, McClellan said.

I first commented on this proposal about a month ago, when CMS hinted it might take this step.  The good news is that CMS is admitting there are problems to be ironed out that the market won't take care of (a little legislating is necessary).  They recognize the complexity is a significant hurdle, and that there are an unnecessary number of "choices" of drug plans.   

But as I examined last time, reducing the plans each insurer can offer to two from three is not enough of choice limitation to reduce confusion.  Seniors in most regions currently have a choice of 40 different plans on average.  Reducing the number of plans each insurer offers in the way CMS proposes will bring the average number of plans to 26 per region.  And as I said before, there's no qualitative difference between choosing from 40 or 26.  Both are much too high to offer a solid, simple comparison.

No, if CMS really wants to simplify things, they should limit the number of plans offered per region, not insurer.  While I would argue that 6 is more than enough choice, perhaps 10 would be more palatable to them.  That way seniors can get a realistic comparison between plans and make the best choice.