Recent healthcare reform has been greeted with fears over whether universal coverage would cause health insurance quotes to skyrocket.

New regulations proposed by Senate Democrats may calm some of this concern, according to a recent report by the New York Times. The legislation gives the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services secretary the power to review and prevent and premium rate increases that were determined to be unreasonable. The bill would also give the federal government the ability to fill in for regulation gaps in certain states.

A similar provision was originally included in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, then left out of the final legislation. Tom Harkin, chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, spoke out in support of this control.

"Protections must be in place to ensure that insurance companies do not take advantage of current market conditions before health reform fundamentally changes the way they do business in 2014," Harkin said in a statement.

Rate hikes proposed by Massachusetts health insurers were recently rejected by the state's Insurance Commissioner, Joseph Murphy, according to the Boston Globe. The insurance companies are currently required to resubmit rates.