Long Term Care Insurance

Medicare covers nursing care and hospice.  Other categories such as memory care for those with the grave misfortune of Alzheimer’s are not.  A relative by marriage ran through $5000 per month in the last couple years.  Fortunately, she had purchased long-term care insurance, which left her millions untouched for her heirs.

I have not thought about this much, partly b because it is terrifying to imagine the last year of two before checking out and partly because my own parents managed to avoid these sort of ugly ends.  My father went from good health to death with only a couple days in the hospital.   My mother went from living at home fairly independently to death in a hospital in less than a week.

I think it likely that neither my wife nor me will battle Alzheimer’s because we keep our brains very active, constantly learning.  Nonetheless, it seems wise to consider purchasing coverage while we are still only in our 60s.  I confess that the prospect of burning through $5000 per month on memory care just does not seem thst scary.  That is not pocket change for us but there are no U-Hauls to Heaven.

Any thoughts or experiences on this?