The insurance companies are whining because the exchanges force them to actually compete. This will put strong negative pressure on their margins. The extra volume won't come close to making up for their losses.

Before the exchanges and the standardized tiers of care, plans were very difficult for consumers to quantitatively compare. Most consumers didn't bother, so insurance companies were able to differentiate themselves with advertising and "fluff features" (easy) rather than by cutting costs and increasing efficiency (hard). Not only did consumers pay for the higher margins that came from fluff-differentiation, but they also never benefitted from competition over efficiency. The setup was good for insurance companies and bad for consumers. Now the party is over and the insurance companies are upset that their cash cow has been slaughtered.

Good riddance.