Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., wants to haul health insurance executives before Congress to grill them about rate hikes.

Mr. Specter took the Senate floor this afternoon with Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, to announce that they will seek a hearing next week in the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which Mr. Harkin chairs, on health insurance costs for small businesses.

Mr. Specter’s interest in the topic was piqued, he said, by a story in Sunday’s New York Times that addressed the rising health costs of small businesses — including Susquehanna Glass in Columbia, Lancaster County. Mr. Specter called Mr. Harkin yesterday to inform him about the article, and the two agreed to pursue a hearing.

The Times reported anecdotal evidence of insurance companies dramatically increasing premiums for next year, positing that it could be the result of profit pressures from Wall Street or motivation to act in advance of Congressional action on health care reform — which is mostly targeted at reforming insurance practices.

“If they have a justification for the price increases, let them tell us what it is,” Mr. Specter said. “Let them produce their books and records if they have a justifiable basis for their increase.”

Mr. Harkin said the hearing should include representatives from small businesses and insurance companies to address the issue.

Both senators said the hearing would be a vehicle to gain support for the proposed “public option,” because a small business that faces high premiums could opt for a government-run insurer instead of a private company.

“If that’s true,” Mr. Specter said of the Times story, “it just reemphasizes the need to have some competition, to have competition which will not knuckle to Wall Street. A public option will not knuckle to Wall Street.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid today announced that a merged Senate bill will include a public option but individual states can opt out of deploying it. The Specter-Harkin hearing could come around the same time that floor debate begins on the health care bill.

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