Blower fan repaired. Bottom line I replaced the assembly. Having said that here are some things to check if you have the same problem. There are a few components under the hood that do 90% of the work.
There is a red wire across the top of the firewall. It is referred to as a J-post connector. Check for ignition on 12v hot on both sides. Next, pull the purple wire on the bottom of the fan itself. Check for 12v w/ignition on here. If you have power here, the issue is at the blower motor or the switch on the dash or the wiring in-between the two.
If you have no power there you either have a bad relay (little removable box that the purple wire comes from) or a bad resistor (under the four wire T-connector on the heater / ac box).
Pull the blower motor. Put 12v to the lead that the purple wire attached to. Put a lead from the battery negative terminal to the blower motor metal frame (ensure you have bare/exposed metal at the ground hole on the frame. The motor will either work or it won't. If not, buy a new one. Get one with the squirrel cage fan attached. Your old squirrel cage fan is likely brittle and will almost certainly break when you try to remove it from the post it is pressed onto. The new ones are not pressed on, but use a D-shaft with a nut. Better design.
Before installing the new blower motor with fan, scrape the paint off where the ground strap is attached. The HVAC box is fiberglass and HDPE, and you must have a good ground to the firewall. You can spray paint back over it later.
Commonly, the blower motor will slowly start to seize. This causes greater and greater resistance over time. That causes the switch to only work on higher and higher levels until you get to max fan and eventually it dies. It may or may not take out the resistor first. The resistor is what allows the thing to spin at different speeds in the first place.
You can check the resistor for continuity with a meter, you can also pull the two sheet metal screws and simply look at the coiled wires for breaks. They are still available from GM through Rock-Auto, so is the relay and the blower fan motor with squirrel cage fan, though these are aftermarket. In my case I was able to buy all of the parts made in the USA or Mexico - nothing from Taiwan or China.
Hope this helps someone.