Regulations can mostly be handled on the state level. Where they cannot be, the Feds need to tread very lightly, because they jeopardize everyone's personal liberties. They have a massive bootprint.
Getting in the insurance business is another thing entirely. The more bureaucracy, the greater the waste and fraud. With the prez pushing our debt through the roof, this was last thing the country needed. Obfuscation on top obfuscation. They did not care. The dems seized their 15 minutes in the spotlight to ram thousands of pages of garbage down the hapless drudges' throats (us)... like a thief in the night.
Problem is government will always seek to aggrandize power whatever the toll it takes on our personal liberties. I say tear down the barriers to obtain a free-market solution that removes government from the equation completely. Tort reform? That will never happen because the dems kowtow to the bar association and the republicans are weak-kneed pansies.