For many Americans, health cover is key to a job

By Ed Stoddard

SOUTHLAKE, Texas (Reuters) - Real estate agent Lisa DeWaal serves coffee at a Starbucks outlet for four hours every morning before she goes to the office to start her "day job."

The reason has little to do with the state of the housing market and everything to do with the one big perk that 20 hours a week at the coffee counter provides: affordable health insurance for her and her three children.

While health experts say there are no statistics available, analysts say there are many Americans like DeWaal: people who have taken or stick to a job just for the health insurance.

It is a situation most Europeans, Canadians and others who enjoy national health services would find bewildering if not appalling and is one factor fueling the drive to reform the hugely expensive U.S. healthcare system.

"People will even stick with a job they feel boxed in on because of the healthcare benefits, especially if those benefits cannot be matched elsewhere," said Andrew Sum, a labor economics professor at Northeastern University.

U.S. company healthcare plans are usually subsidized by the employer. They are much more affordable and comprehensive than private plans that can exceed a $1,000 a month for a family, a huge burden for most households.

LOW WAGE BUT HEALTH COVER

As a result, company plans can make even a low-wage job an attractive option.

Starbucks says its most economical plan, available to part- or full-time staff, costs the employee about $25 a month.

Such plans, of course, also have an impact on companies' bottom lines and are part of the rising price tag of U.S. healthcare.

Half Price Books, a privately held retail chain based in Dallas with 2,500 employees nationwide, says over the past few years the costs of providing the same coverage to its workers has risen about 9 percent per year.

Its employees pay nothing for its base plan just to insure themselves and they pay $183 a month to cover a family.

President Barack Obama and the Democratic-led Congress are working on a fundamental restructuring of the healthcare system this year, aiming to sharply reduce the total of 46 million Americans who now have no health insurance.

DeWaal, a realtor for Prudential Texas Properties in the affluent town of Southlake near Dallas, has avoided the ranks of the uninsured -- but she has to sweat for it.

"I probably work 60 hours a week because I'm a full-time realtor ... I get up at around 4 a.m. every week day," said DeWaal, 44, a South African immigrant and widow, who begins her Starbucks shift at 5 o'clock each morning.