The main criteria for government regulation is that it appears to benefit the upper middle class who influence government (by being the media, by being organize

The main criteria for government regulation is that it appears to benefit the upper middle class who influence government (by being the media, by being organized voters/campaigners and by being the actual senior government people discussing and deciding). Where the regulation is low cost and scales well you get an improvement for the poor too. If scale doesn't apply well (e.g. surgery) or if regulation helps and doesn't harm the upper middle class (e.g. the mountain of regulations around housebuilding in the uk) or if the regulation only appears helpful (e.g. the overregulation of nuclear power) then the poor will suffer (e.g. by dying while on waiting lists or being unable to afford housing or having eye watering electricity bills). Even if you disagree with my particular examples of the above three classes I think you'll be able to come up with something for each of them.