 The Balanced Budget Act of 1997 formalized the demonstration programs into Medicare Part C, and introduced the term "Medicare+Choice" as a pseudo-brand for this option.Initially, fewer sponsors participated than expected, leading to less competition than expected by the Democrats who in 1995 conceived what became Part C in 1997.In a 2003 law, the Part C capitated-fee benchmark/framework/competitive-bidding process was created effective in 2005 (for the 2006 plan year) to increase sponsor participation.