Part-Time Workers Want Health Coverage Too

Sixty percent of businesses in this country currently provide health benefits for their employees. But only half that number cover part-time workers. CBS News correspondent Michelle Miller has more as part of CBS News' series "Prescriptions for Change."

Lauren Roth is not your typical starving artist. She says she just does what she loves. What she does is draw enticing signs for a Whole Foods supermarket in New Jersey. But her heart is in painting.

"I was able to part time here, keep my health benefits, and still be a full-time artist," Roth said recently while at work at Whole Foods.

She's able to do that, even working fewer than 30 hours a week, because Whole Foods is an atypical company - providing access to full health benefits for its part time workers.

"Before I started working here, I was paying almost $400 a month, and that was just medical - not vision or dental or anything," Roth said.

Now she pays around $200 a month for everything.

Of Whole Foods' 51,000 employees, 10,000 are part time, and one in five of them opt in to the plan.

"We hear from our part-timers that they really want the benefits," said Christina Minardi, regional president for Whole Foods. "Since it is benefits at a reduced rate, it just makes sense. It's a win-win for them and for us."

Fewer than a third of American companies offer part-time employees health care benefits. Large companies like Whole Foods are twice as likely to offer coverage than the nation's smallest businesses.

In fact, 60 percent of companies with 5,000 or more employees offer health benefits to part-timers, while only 27 percent of firms with 200 or fewer employees do so, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Most small businesses say if health care were more affordable, they would provide it. But, for now, it's usually a choice between providing benefits or a pay raise.

"The premiums are through the roof," said Todd McCracken, president of the National Small Business Association. "There are a lot of part-time workers who aren't demanding health insurance so much as they're demanding more cash."

One of the rare small businesses that does provide the coverage is San Francisco-based Support.com. Its 400 techies work part-time from home giving the general public computer help over the phone.

Support.com's president Josh Pickus says even if the benefits cost more, they're worth it.

"You can't overestimate the importance of health benefits and the related things to getting a really talented workforce," he said. "We think this makes good business sense in the long run."

As for Roth, if she weren't making signs for Whole Foods, "I probably wouldn't have health insurance," she said - or nearly as much peace of mind.