Insurers are facing pressure from regulators and lawmakers about plans that offer limited choices of doctors and hospitals, a tactic the industry said is vital to keep down coverage prices in the new health law’s marketplaces.

Yeah—Obamacare regulates what coverages must be offered and at what prices (i.e., at no increase in price while adding mandatory coverage for contraceptives, pre-natal care, maternity care, etc.  And regardless of whether the man required to buy a health plan needs these things.  Or the empty-nesters.  Or post-menopausal women.  Or…).

However, since the insurers can only control costs—and remain in this new business of supplying government-mandated welfare—by controlling how many doctors or hospitals are in their networks, now we “need” additional regulations to “instruct” the insurers in this area.

Under [a] new federal proposal, insurers selling plans in the federally run marketplace would be required to submit to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services a full list of providers in a network before their plans are approved for listing in the exchanges.  In the future, regulators also plan to develop federal standards for the required number of providers.

And [Emphasis added]

California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones said he plans to revise his agency’s standards for insurers’ health networks partly because current regulations don’t give him enough power to continue oversight after a health plan goes on the market.

And so on, across lots of states.

Of course, absent government’s Obamacare intervention in this “market,” such layers of regulation wouldn’t be necessary.  The bottom layer of regulation wouldn’t be necessary.

But then, what would these bureaucrats do for jobs?  How would Progressive politicians justify their elective jobs?