We’ve all heard the scary numbers: experts say retirees need to set aside hundreds of thousands of dollars for health care in retirement: $200,000, $300,000 or more. Billions and billions, as the late astronomer Carl Sagan would have said.

But the forecasts are just average figures. It is harder to get a handle on your own health care spending needs in retirement. And with so many struggling to save anything at all, what’s the point of trying to plan specifically for health care?

A new study published in the American Journal of Law and Medicine finds that most Americans underestimate what they’ll spend by a wide margin. In today’s Reuters column, I run down the numbers and get past those billions and billions, so we can think of this as a more manageable challenge.

Tags | health insurance, healthcare, planning, Reuters