DETROIT General Motors Corp. increases health care premiums for retirees

Premiums will jump by $25 a month on average.
DETROIT (AP) -- Hit by fast-rising prescription drug expenses that cost General Motors Corp. about $1 billion last year, the automaker is substantially increasing premiums for 164,000 retirees in 2003.
Effective Jan. 1, salaried workers who have retired from the world's largest automaker will see their health care premiums jump by about $25 a month on average. The increases will range from $9 to $51 a month, company spokesman Tom Wickham said Tuesday.
Current premiums depend on the insurer the retiree chooses. The increases in some cases will double the monthly premium.
GM paid $998 million on 18.9 million prescription drug claims last year. Prescription drug costs for GM have risen from $700 per person in 1998 to $1,164 in 2001, Wickham said.
"That far outdistances the inflation rate, and there's no relief in sight," he said.
Retirees account for the "vast majority of the prescriptions we write," he said.
Other automakers
In June, Ford Motor Co. began charging health insurance premiums to 50,000 white-collar retirees and their spouses.
White-collar retirees at DaimlerChrysler AG's U.S operations and at most other major U.S. corporations long have paid monthly premiums for health coverage.
GM recently wrote its salaried retirees about the increase. The move does not affect the company's 528,000 hourly retirees or their surviving spouses, whose benefits are protected by United Auto Workers and other union agreements.
The UAW's national contract with GM comes up for renewal next year.
In all, GM provides health insurance to 692,000 retirees and retiree spouses and to 491,000 active workers and their families. It spent $4.2 billion last year on health care, and most of those covered are retirees or their spouses, Wickham said.