General Motors sticks the knife in GM retirees' back.

Effective Jan. 1, GM will end health benefits for 97,400 salaried retirees, their spouses and dependents.

Retirees will receive an extra $300 a month in their pension checks that could be used to buy health care.

Salaried Chrysler LLC and Ford Motor Corp. retirees had to make similar choices in the past two years, after receiving years of coverage for medical, dental, vision, prescription drug and some rehabilitation services with modest co-pays.

Although half of American employers still offer health benefits to retirees, the trend is to drop retirement health plans for newer workers or freeze coverage for current retirees to save money, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit health research organization.

Now GM retirees must also navigate the confusing world of Medicare — a health insurance plan some find so bewildering that many settle for costlier plans without doing the research to find cheaper, more comprehensive ones.

GM has hired ExtendHealth, a San Francisco benefits management company, to help retirees find new health coverage, said GM spokeswoman Michelle Bunker.
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In addition: GM said that it would suspend its dividend, sell assets worth as much as $4 billion, borrow an additional $2 billion to $3 billion and lay off salaried workers, among other steps.