Yah, the middle ground is the worst case. It seemed to us questioning engineers that only a small percentage of people fall in that area.
Rich enough to be able to afford the premiums, but not rich enough to pay for the care themselves.

Troubling thing I've been reading is the premiums being increased. What happens if you've been paying for X years but then the premiums get jacked up and/or you can no longer afford the premiums? Do you lose everything?

According to Consumer Report, there is a middle ground wehre getting LTCI possibly might make sense, but CR says that you shouldn't buy until you're around 60. CR discussed the sales pitch about buying early, what with lower premiums, but they concluded that rate increases and other such issues makes it more sensible to buy around 60. The biggest issue is that there's a waiting period to collect anything, and most nursing home stays are less than the waiting period. As for at home care, newer policies do provide some help, assuming you fall within the middle ground and otherwise meet the policy conditions. One thing that I think about is the fact that everything is going to change within the healthcare field over the next 5 to 10 years, and it's impossible to predict what system we will have 10 to 20 years from now.