How do we keep from losing our life savings to Medicaid?

the two questions are separate.

1. If GM means "general motors" - then you need to call your benefits administrator - or you can start with general info from your state dept. of insurance / state dept. of corporations. Alternately, you can talk to an independant insurance agent, and may get some insight that way.

2. "losing your savings to medicaid" is what happens when you apply for medi-caid and medicaid pays for services. Start with your local area council on aging to get infomation on medicaid, which is separate from medicare. Talk to an expert volunteer before going to any kind of attorney. I do not know about Nevada, but most states have gotten very tough on lookback periods - but that hasn't stopped some people from advertising that you can protect your savings from medicaid. Remain sceptical - and hopefully armed with information you can take a look at your situation and decide at that point what to do.

I feel for you - I cannot imagine what it would be like to be going through what you must be experiencing. Just remember to take a deep breath and keep good notes while you are doing your fact finding. Never trust anyone to do your own paper work and always keep extra copies.

Strongly advise you make your Congressional Rep and your Senators aware of this development. Remind them that NONE of the bailout money that went to GM before they went bankrupt was earmarked to pick up health care and LTC benefits that salaried retirees had contributed to and should continue to receive despite the bankruptcy. Afterall, the billions in TAXPAYER MONEY that went to GM could have been used to transfer lost coverage to Medicare since it was already in force.
BTW-Please forgive my soapbox speeches in your time of need. My father was a member of the United Autoworkers Union for 45 years. He passed away about before the current financial mess and thanks to Medicare and Union Health Care benefits was able to preserve the modest estate he had worked his entire life to build. Do not fall for any "private" solutions to your problems. Most are designed to profit at your expense and hit you when you are already down. You might also contact an Eldercare Lawyer who might consider sponsoring a Class Action suit against the "long term care provider" claiming there was no way you could continue paying the premium on your own. Sounds like they are bailing out on you and 33000 other salaried retirees. There may be laws preventing them from doing so but they will never tell you that--especially when you are down and out.

General Motors as of Dec,31 2008 canceled the health care benefits of 33000 salaried retirees. The long term care provider said there was no way that we could pay any premium to keep the coverage in force

EZCARE,
I attempted to generate some interest in a class action against the LTC provider but no one was interested.Perhaps contacting an Eldercare Lawyer is a good suggestion.
I had not thought of the bailout money.
Thank you for the advice.

Carol,
There must be a great many GM retirees in the same boat but I don't know how to reach anyone regarding a class action suit.

Reminder: contact your state dept. of insurance and state dept. of corporations by phone and in writing. file a grievance, they can give you facts and recourse. It is horrible, but there have been past cases of other companies doing this -

if you are feeling up to it, contact your local news and see if you can interest them in doing a story about what happened - give them your story & the # of employees affected by this.

If you are going to contact your legislators, there is a process - unless you are very lucky you will talk to aides - make them your friends. Hand write a letter, with a photo of you & family printed on the same page (make it small) and hand deliver it. At that time ask for an appointment and state your case to the aide in less than 2 minutes (practice with a timer). Keep going back to meetings - and go to your local city council and state for the record that you have an issue / ask for your council to also contact legislators on behalf of their constituents.

All of this takes time and energy - but with high enough personal stakes, like losing LTC insurance, I hope you do not give up.