While healthy retirees' immediate health care costs may be lowerthan their unhealthy counterparts, their extended life times willincrease total costs. These are the findings of a recent report from the Center for Retirement Research.

The Center used data from the Health and Retirement Study tocreate a simulated lifetime health and health care cost history forhouseholds at age 65. Socioeconomic status, gender and insurancecoverage were considered in the simulation.

The report found that a couple turning 65 in 2009 can expect to spend $220,000 on health care if one or both spousessuffer a chronic illness. Furthermore, 5 percent of couples canexpect to spend over $465,000. Yet, healthy couples can spendbetween $260,000 and $570,000.

Another explanation for the seemingly contradictory finding isthat retirees who are healthy now may still develop a chronicdisease later in life. According to the Center's simulation, an80-year-old can expect to spend one-third of his or her remaininglife suffering from a chronic disease.

The Center warns that healthy people planning for retirementneed to plan for higher health costs instead of assuming theircurrent good health will last.

"The reality is that even the currently healthy can expect toeventually suf-fer from one or more chronic diseases, which oftenresults in high out-of-pocket and long-term care costs," accordingto the report's authors.

"Individuals who wait until their health declines represent aparticularly bad risk because they incur higher medical costs thanthe healthy, at least in the short run, and also pay fewer years'premiums. Therefore, households that do not buy Medigap when theyfirst join Medicare run the risk of facing substantially higherpremiums, as do households of any age that postpone buyinglong-term care insurance."