Retiree health-care costs keep rising, Fidelity says

Retiree health-care costskeep rising, Fidelity says
BOSTON -- Rising health-care costs are eating up more of retirees' savings, with a 65-year-old couple retiring this year needing about 215,000 to cover medical costs over the rest of their lives, Fidelity Investments said Tuesday.
The 215,000 represents a 7.5 percent increase from Fidelity's estimate last year of the amount a typical U.S. couple would need during retirement to pay for health care, including medical and surgical expenses as well as prescription drugs.
That increase is slightly higher than the average annual increase of 6.1 percent since Fidelity began calculating retiree health-care expenses five years ago. Since then, the highest increase came in 2005, when the estimate rose 8.6 percent.