Health savings accounts, which allow individuals to make tax-deductible contributions to an account that can be used to pay for qualified medical expenses, have current statutory contribution limits that are too low to be a significant part in savings for retirement health care costs, says a new study by the Employee Benefit Research Institute.

HSAs are sometimes recommended as a vehicle for funding future retiree health care costs, but EBRI says that the “maximum savings that can be accumulated in an HSA will be far from sufficient to fully cover the savings needed in retirement for insurance premiums and out-of-pocket expenses.” According to EBRI, a married couple both age 55 this year would be able to save $118,000 in a health savings account by 2018 if both made the maximum contributions allowed by law, including catch-up contributions. The same couple would need to save a combined $325,000–$654,000 by the time they both reach age 65 to have enough money to cover health premiums and out-of-pocket expenses 50 percent of the time. If the couple wanted to have a 90 percent chance of having enough money to cover premiums and out-of-pocket expenses, they would need to save from $511,000 to just over $1 million, according to EBRI.