The Richmond Times-Dispatch issues a stirring editorial call today for free-enterprise insurance reform. It’s worth quoting in full:

In a state that ostensibly is a bastion of capitalism, government intervention in the marketplace turns up surprisingly often. Two parties who are negotiating a contract for a good or service often find a third party — the commonwealth — sticking its nose in where it doesn’t belong.

For decades, Virginia law prevented insurance companies and policyholders from deciding who could receive health coverage. Not until three years ago did the General Assembly pass legislation allowing group accident and sickness policies to cover any class of persons mutually agreed upon by the insurance company and the policyholder.

Before then, health-insurance coverage was limited to spouses and dependent children. If a worker wanted to include someone else in his or her coverage, the law said he couldn’t — even if the worker’s employer and the insurance company both were happy to fulfill the request.

This year Del. Adam Ebbin is sponsoring legislation (HB 865) that would open up life-insurance coverage in much the same way: It would allow insurance companies to offer group coverage to anyone policyholders wished to cover — brother or sister, elderly parent, life partner, or third cousin twice removed — not just spouses and children.

Note well what this bill is not: a mandate. Insurance companies would not be required to cover anybody they did not wish to. They would remain free to reject coverage they did not care to offer. They simply would not be prohibited from covering persons they are willing to cover.

In a free market, that is precisely how insurance ought to work: The buyer and the seller of the policy work out the terms between themselves. The state’s job is merely to enforce the contract — not to write it. Ebbin’s bill deserves a resounding and unanimous aye.

The Times-Dispatch is well known as a conservative editorial page, so it’s gratifying to see them endorsing this pro-free enterprise, pro-business bill — even though some conservatives might object to it on the grounds that it will allow, though not compel, businesses to offer group life insurance to employees with same-sex partners. The Times-Dispatch commendably wants such issues worked out within companies, not by a state legislative ban.