Amanda Sears (00:00):
Welcome to Inside The Senior Alliance, a podcast exploring resources and issues in the field of aging. I’m Amanda Sears, the Chief Community Impact Officer at The Senior Alliance serving Western and Southern Wayne County. Joining me today is State Representative Jamie Thompson, serving the 28th House District. Representative Thompson. Thank you for joining me today.
Jamie Thompson (00:20):
Good morning. Thank you for inviting me.
Amanda Sears (00:22):
The 28th House District covers multiple cities across Downriver, outside of Detroit. Based on your experiences working directly with residents in these communities, what challenges and real life experiences stand out for older adults and their daily routines that you see?
Jamie Thompson (00:40):
We actually have quite a few, unfortunately. I think one thing that is very top of mind right now is affordability for our seniors on fixed incomes, property taxes continue to rise. We have a housing shortage. I see a lot of seniors or retirees that are looking to downsize, but that single family home on a flat, that may be appropriate for someone who’s aging and may not want to walk up steps and needing first floor laundry, things of that nature. Prescription medicine is becoming unaffordable. These seniors work their whole life and are living off of a retirement and with the inflation and property taxes, cost of groceries, cost of healthcare, they’re really pinching pennies throughout the month. Maybe also transportation to doctor’s appointments. Those are the things that I’m hearing from the residents that reach out to me or the seniors that come to my coffee hours right now, Downriver. And I think throughout southeastern Michigan.
Amanda Sears (01:34):
Before surveying the house, you were a nurse. How has that experience influenced your work in the legislature?
Jamie Thompson (01:40):
I think it’s greatly impacted me as a legislator. I’ve never been anything more than just a nurse. I say that because I went into the legislature as a nurse. I carry my nurse hat with me everywhere I go. I think my ability to listen and hear the concerns of seniors and all residents in my community, I do so as a listening ear, as an advocate with my training as a nurse. I also know health conditions. I know more or less the system. I have both experience in a long-term care facility, also a hospital setting. So I’ve done a variation of meeting people where they are seeing our seniors, that their families are dealing with concerns when they’ve been placed into a nursing home or a long-term care facility, the care that they receive, the concerns that family members have, you know, but also at an acute care setting if they’re, you know, placed in a hospital.
Jamie Thompson (02:31):
So I’ve been able to work in both. I’ve been fortunate enough in my career to see both sides. And I think as a nurse, that’s really important because, you know, nursing, you can go into any fields, but having both experiences, not a lot of nurses can say that they’ve worked in both settings and the dynamics of both settings are so unique and different and regulated differently that I think I can really help people. And then also understanding medical terminology, the disease process, a lot of things that I’ve been able to bring to the table in Lansing when I talk with the lobbying organizations that represent different things within healthcare, whether it be insurance or the Michigan Nurses Association, or just understanding someone’s mobility if they reach out to me and have concerns. I think that has really helped me connect with my district, and then also helped me connect with people that they remember and see me as that nurse, that advocate, someone who wants to listen and truly cares about their living situation, making them comfortable, feeling like all of their questions were addressed.
Jamie Thompson (03:30):
And then also critically thinking and helping them think outside of the box through things that may be going on in their life. And then that follow up to people that reach out is so important. I tell people all the time, I don’t have all the answers, no one has all the answers, but I learned very quickly in my nursing career that following up with people, responding to their concerns, even if you don’t have the answers, letting them know that I did address X, Y, and Z, I’m waiting to hear on something. People really appreciate that you heard them, that their feelings were acknowledged, that their concerns were acknowledged. And just truth and honesty goes a long way.
Amanda Sears (04:05):
So some of your experience as a nurse, I’m sure helped with the passage of House Bill 4418 that passed in September of 2025. It allows designated patient surrogates to make healthcare decisions when individuals are unable to do so themselves. From your perspective, how will this bill impact older adults and families, especially those who are vulnerable and need help making medical decisions?
Jamie Thompson (04:32):
So that legislation has been around for a few years, and even when I heard it in my previous term, it resonated with me because I know not everyone is as prepared for the unexpected, especially with our seniors who may think that they have all of their ducks in a row and everything in order. And sometimes things turn for take a turn for the worse really quick in healthcare. And maybe they didn’t have a designated power of attorney to make decisions for them, or, there’s a couple different stages. I am finding as a fairly still new legislator, but with the patient surrogate, I really like to refer that as trying to move Michigan into a next of kin state where you do not have to go to court to get the ability to advocate and represent your family members wishes. And I don’t think the courts need to be making that decision.
Jamie Thompson (05:24):
I think our loved ones need to be making that decision and that the next of kin is truly in place. How it really came about that I really became interested and advocated to champion for this legislation was even as a nurse, I did not realize that if this legal document was not in place, even though someone had signed it, that was of sound, mind and body, that their final wishes could not be made by that family member. So the situation happened with my father three years ago now. He moved to Kentucky, born and raised in Kentucky, came to Michigan, lived in Michigan. You know, I’m 49. I think he moved back when I was probably in my mid thirties. So he was back in Kentucky for a few years after divorcing my mom. Long story short, in 22, he took a turn for the worse, and I got the phone call from Kentucky, you know, that your dad had had a heart attack that had went undiagnosed, and he was beginning to fill with fluids.
Jamie Thompson (06:19):
And again, being a nurse, I understood that process and I know that there is a surgical procedure that could be done. And I drove to Kentucky and at the time, again, he was alert and oriented, but because of where the heart attack had occurred, his aorta was calcified and it went undiagnosed. So he had been filling with fluid for two or three weeks, and where in the aorta it was located, they couldn’t operate because of the calcification. So unfortunately, the doctor said, there is nothing we can do. At this point he needs to go to hospice and he’s going to have about 10 days to live. So in Kentucky, I said, okay, I’m here. I’ve traveled here. I’m his oldest daughter. I’m the one that has the closest relationship with him. He didn’t really talk much to my younger sibling, do I need to get power of attorney?
Jamie Thompson (07:03):
And the doctor in Kentucky said, no, you are his daughter. You are his next of kin. You would make those decisions for him. So while he was alert and oriented, it was a very hard conversation to have with my dad, you know, telling him that, I know it doesn’t make sense, but they can’t operate. You’re going to continue to fill with fluid. You know this is ultimately the end of your life and I need to know what you want. And he wanted to be a Do Not Resuscitate. He didn’t want to be intubated, he didn’t want to be on a tube feeding. There was things he wanted. And he signed all that, all that documentation in Kentucky. And then I asked him if he, you know, if he needed me to take time off work, if he wanted to pass away in Kentucky, did he want me to bring him back home?
Jamie Thompson (07:46):
He wanted to come home. So I was able to get him back here to Michigan, and I placed him in a facility here in Woodhaven that is a skilled nursing facility. The moment he came into the state of Michigan, his Do Not Resuscitate order was no longer valid. And also because now he was confused, because when your body fills with fluids and your kidneys can’t excrete them, your ammonia level begins to rise. And that causes the confusion and that the dying process starts. So now he is confused and he can’t make decisions for himself, but they would not allow me to be his decision maker. Therefore, I could not make the decision for him to be a Do Not Resuscitate or, you know, I had a harder time getting through the hospice process and I had been, you know, practicing nursing up until 2021, moving into almost 20, well, it was between the end of 2020, 2021 was when I had went contingent at work..
Jamie Thompson (08:38):
And then my daughter passed away since things changed in her life. And then I started, you know, working to run for office. So three, four years out of the bedside, I thought, what in the heck is going on? This doesn’t make any sense to me. So ultimately, because I couldn’t make those decisions, they said, you need to go to court to get guardianship. And I’m like, yeah, right in Wayne County. And I knew timelinewise, my dad had maybe three or four days left if the doctors were accurate in the timeframe he had to live. And I said, I’m not going to go sit downtown Detroit in a courtroom to try to get guardianship of my father to prevent him from being resuscitated when that was not his final wishes. He’s actively dying. This is cruel. Let him pass away peacefully.
Jamie Thompson (09:20):
The nurses understood, but their hands were tied because in the state of Michigan, they would be held liable because you have to go and get that guardianship from the court if that patient wasn’t alert and oriented when they signed over your ability to do so. So that kind of really is what, when I got, when we, my dad did pass away peacefully, I did get a doctor to sign on and take responsibility. Obviously I wouldn’t sue the facility, so on and so forth. And that really made me think, okay, I navigated that situation not only as a nurse, but as a state representative who has access to a lot more people than the normal person in the Rolodex. So I was calling everyone I knew saying, this is not right, this is not right. And I couldn’t, I couldn’t get anything done. And then I thought, how can the average person navigate this system if they don’t even have a medical background or they’re not a state rep, this is not right.
Jamie Thompson (10:11):
So I really started championing that legislation and was very pleased to see it pass the house. And it’s currently sitting in the Senate, we’re just waiting on a Senate floor vote, and I’m excited and eager to have the Governor sign that we have the Attorney General that supports that legislation. So what I would like to say is, if you have your final directives in place, your advanced directives, and you’ve went to an attorney, and you know who’s going to be your power attorney, who is going to make medical kill decisions for you, if you should not, if you’ve designated that person and you have legal paperwork binding, then that’s wonderful. That’s what you should do. But if you’re ever in a situation where you have not gotten that documentation in place, this would allow your family member in the proper chain, you know, your spouse, your child. We even made sure that we put in there, if say you’ve been in a relationship with a partner and you’ve lived together for 15 years, but you were never married, should that person have a say in your final wishes, that person knows you more than anyone. So we have designated that within the legislation to make sure that family members are sitting with their loved ones when they need them, and they’re not sitting in a courtroom trying to battle for guardianship.
Amanda Sears (11:14):
Going along with another personal situation that you have, I want to say I’m sorry to hear of your daughter’s passing, and like many people in Michigan, grandparents and relatives are stepping in to raise grandchildren and provide kinship care. What challenges do you see caregivers face in these situations, and what more could the state do to better support kinship caregivers?
Jamie Thompson (11:38):
First and foremost, unfortunately, it comes back to affordability. We were in a place in our life when our daughter passed away in 2021, she was 24 years old, and she was in a motorcycle accident. The children’s father, they had separated so he was in a relationship with another woman and expecting another child at that time. So when we went to court for guardianship he quietly walked away. And my husband and I are the sole guardians of the three grandchildren. We had actually had been to the point in our lives at that time when we were almost empty nesters. So we have three children, you know, our three children, who at the time were 20, my daughter was 24, then our son was 22, and our youngest was 20. So the 22-year-old actually didn’t even live at home. Him and his girlfriend had an apartment, and the 24-year-old had just purchased a modular in Rockwood for her and the three children.
Jamie Thompson (12:33):
So we only had one 20-year-old at home. Who if those of you that listening know your 20 year olds aren’t home very often. So he really wasn’t home much. So we had done some redesign to our home. We had taken three bedrooms and turned them into two larger rooms. We had knocked down walls and opened up spaces because we were kind of getting ready to just be the grandparent house on the weekend or for the holidays, and I wanted a bigger room. So we made a lot of changes prior to the accident and to taking in guardianship of the children. So if we wouldn’t have had a little bit of money saved, it would’ve been very hard for us to put those two bedrooms back to three bedrooms so that each child could have a room and just, you know, make sure that we were finishing different things around the house, that we hadn’t started furniture needed to be purchased.
Jamie Thompson (13:17):
Now that it was within the court’s ability to say, was I going to be granted guardianship or not? You know, we’ve got really nervous about our smoke alarms, just everything in the home because you are so afraid that if everything isn’t in place the way that, you know, the court would like it. Heaven forbid these children would’ve been placed in foster care. So we probably went a little overboard, but I know a lot of families that have gone through that. The ability to financially support those children without assistance from the state is difficult. Again, for those seniors that are on a fixed income and are retired, we don’t realize I can use my mom’s income. For example, my mom, when my daughter passed away, my mom retired that year as a nurse as well, to help me raise my daughter’s children.
Jamie Thompson (14:04):
So to help me raise my mom’s great grandchildren, believe it or not. And my mom was 65, so she retired a little early, so that meant she was penalized a little bit. So she worked for, then Oakwood as a nurse at Heritage Hospital for a little over 30 years. So I know she’d had to go into her retirement a few times for things that popped up. But basically her monthly income right now is about $2,200. Even if you own your home, she is living off of a little over $2,000 a month. $23,000 a year, I think is her total. That’s not a lot of income. Now, imagine being placed with children, whatever the situation is, and I talk to a lot of grandparents in the state of Michigan. I think that that’s what society needs to see as a whole. We have so many grandparents stepping up to raise their grandchildren or aunts and uncles, and it’s not always due to a death.
Jamie Thompson (14:55):
It could be due to mental health, it could be due to incarceration, it could be due to so many other different issues where, you know, kinship care is so needed and should be so supportive because we know that that’s going to have better outcomes for the children, ultimately better outcomes for our communities. So talking to people throughout the state really that are reaching out to me, saying, oh my gosh, I’m a grandparent raising my grandchildren and I’ve had to struggle through this or struggle through that. There’s so much that we need to do to continue to support that. There is some legislation that’s always moving because the state does recognize the need for that and it should be talked about more there. There’s a lot, just not the financial support that we need to look at. Community support, our schools, all of my grandchildren’s, the schools that they have went to since the accident, they’re very supportive because the dynamics are different, right?
Jamie Thompson (15:50):
When you’re celebrating Mother’s Day and Father’s Day and talking about mom and dad and, and you have children in the classroom that lost their mom or dad, I don’t believe that they should ever be victimized. And we’ve really focused on not making them victims, because I don’t want them to live their whole life with a chip on their shoulders, that everything bad that happens to them is going to happen because they lost their mom and they don’t see their dad. You know, I want them to overcome that. That doesn’t define them, obviously, it impacted them, but to help them overcome that and that trauma has been my focus. So dealing with those situations within our schools and within our communities and our churches, we’re just wrapping our arms around those children and letting them know that this was something bad that happened to you, but this doesn’t define you.
Jamie Thompson (16:40):
And there’s a lot of organizations in the state of Michigan that are really stepping up to help children, especially children that have lost parents. I’ve been working with the Yatooma’s Foundation for the children, and it specifically helps families navigate the loss of a parent. So the spouse, the children, helping them navigate conservatorship, guardianship. These are things that a lot of people in a really bad time of their life have to navigate. So when you have organizations that can step in and say, we know how the system works, you know, let us help you so that you can just focus on your grief and being with the children, that’s the most precious thing that we can do.
Amanda Sears (17:21):
One other big issue in the community nationwide is mental health issues among veterans. What steps do you believe the state of Michigan should take to better support mental health for veterans, particularly older adult veterans?
Jamie Thompson (17:35):
Acknowledgement is huge. I think we have done a better job of acknowledging that many of our homeless community residents are veterans. And a lot of the hurdles that we see within the mental health system are related to our veterans and dealing with them really, I think has to take forefront. And the partisanship that goes along with actually getting something done has been pretty frustrating in Lansing. I would like to see us just do good things and good policy, and it shouldn’t matter whose name is on it. I have been working with Downriver for Veterans and other veterans organizations. I was really surprised to see that first and foremost, even seniors that served throughout their life, even in Vietnam, they never signed up for services or benefits when they came home. You would hear a common theme is either I didn’t know that I could, or the other message usually is I felt like I wasn’t as damaged as somebody else and I didn’t want to waste those resources on me.
Jamie Thompson (18:41):
I wanted somebody else to have those resources, which, you know, that just breaks your heart that they would think that way. So getting our veterans signed up for benefits should be a priority. I would like to see our veterans signed up for benefits as soon as they come home, soon as they’re discharged from service. I think that would have to be something done at the federal government, but getting them that access to real help when they need it. What I’ve seen across the board with mental health and with our veterans and with a lot of things when people reach out for help, is that we need more up to date information because the phone calls when finally someone gets to a point. So if, say you have a veteran and they finally get to a point that they say, okay, I really need to get into counseling.
Jamie Thompson (19:26):
Or they’re at that point where they’ve acknowledged they want the help going through the system to get their paperwork to get signed up for services. They get on a merry-go-round of, okay, you call this one, oh, nope, they don’t have it. You call that one. Well, when you get this call that one and you’re just sending them on this merry-go -round, that they never get the answers they need in even a moderate timeframe. So they end up giving up and they end up saying, it’s too hard, it’s not worth it, or there’s nothing out there. So working with our community action organizations, our VFW’s, our veterans organizations, and just simplifying the process. For example, veterans can use an app called My HealtheVet. I think that that’s the name of the app. I apologize for that, but if I don’t know exactly, but it is an app through the state of Michigan and we did an event in Woodhaven.
Jamie Thompson (20:15):
I’d love to see more of this where we advertise and bring in folks because we have, you know, a lot of elderly veterans that aren’t very familiar with technology, maybe their spouses. So we get their spouse there and we say, you know, did you know you can sign up via an app? We can help you put that on your phone. And once you get set-up, you can request your DD-214 to prove that you were a service member. And this immediately connects you with services through the VA, whether it be downtown Ann Arbor, what the closest facility is, and then your records are right there in the app and you can help navigating your doctor’s appointments, your medication, lab work procedures. Maybe you forgotten when your appointment is. So it just keeps everything in one place. And you’d be so surprised at how many people in our communities that don’t even know that exists.
Jamie Thompson (21:01):
That’s one thing that we’ve been doing. I think that there’s something else we can do around, for our younger veterans, the immediate push for psychotropics to be given to them. And we need to be more focusing on for them to know and the peer support with other, you know, young servicemen and women about the things that they have went through, or maybe how they’re different, that the things that they’re feeling when they come home are normal. And a lot of times I think when they feel like something is wrong with them or they’re different or they’re having PTSD, that we’re very quick to put them on medication, but we never address the true things that are happening to them emotionally that’s causing them to feel that way. And they’re not really a hundred percent in a place that they have the ability to make a decision.
Jamie Thompson (21:49):
Is the psychotropic something that’s going to benefit me? What are the side effects? I don’t really know much about medication, I’m just listening to what the physician is saying, or the therapist and you know, they’re jumping onto a lot of these psychotropics that can actually have suicidal ideations as part of a risk for taking it. So slowing down, I think on just putting everyone on medication and think that that’s just going to fix them is not really fixing them. They need that peer support. They need to talk to people that have lived through what they have. People need to be understanding our law enforcement, I think, and especially our Downriver communities, are doing a great job, Brownstown specifically of how they interact with a veteran that that may be a homeless veteran that has some mental health issues. Addressing those instead of, you know, immediately putting everyone in the same pot, you know, if you know what I’m saying? I think that that’s a big issue. And getting rid of that stigma, you know, that stigma for men and women that just because they’re struggling emotionally that they should be embarrassed about that. I think in society as a whole, we’re talking about mental health more, which is good. And we need to help them see that there, you know, there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
Amanda Sears (23:01):
What do you think policymakers should prioritize to support the rising population of older adults in Michigan?
Jamie Thompson (23:09):
Policy-wise, we have to address property taxes. That is a huge thing I hear from not just seniors, everyone but our seniors. Something that you know has been happening in multiple states and in the state of Michigan is that downsizing aspect. Our aging population, most of them are in a larger home because they raised a family in that home. Maybe you know, the house is a lot of upkeep. The property is larger, the house is larger. They raise their families, they want to downsize, but the moment that they sell that home and purchase a new home, even if it is at a lower cost, their taxes are going to shoot through the roof. And that’s why they’re again, holding onto larger homes because they know the difference in the tax increase. So we are right now working on how we can begin to solve this problem in Michigan.
Jamie Thompson (24:00):
I wish there was a world where we could say, you know what? We’re just going to get rid of property taxes. We shouldn’t have to pay property taxes. We are not there. We have become a society where those property taxes are funding our law enforcement, the schools. So we can’t just get rid of property taxes, but we need to be coming up with something to give people relief and help them with what’s going on with housing. I also think that we need to be looking at policies for my generation. You know, I’m 49 years old. My mom and my daughter and I were fairly young. I had my daughter when I was 20. My mom had me when she was 19, but now my daughter had her first child at 17. So we are kind of younger moms. So I’m fortunate that, you know, I’m 49.
Jamie Thompson (24:44):
My mom would be 68 now. So we have the two of us to help. And she’s not at a place where she would need care. I’d be giving care to her. But we’re getting to that point where working women are going to be looking at a place where they need to start caring for their elderly parent. So we need to be looking at policies that’s going to support them to maintain their life, possibly teenagers. It goes right back to affordability. I look at the fact that my 24-year-old cannot afford to pay $1,500 a month to rent an apartment. These are Downriver communities where you used to be able to rent an apartment for $700, $800 a month. So the dynamics of kids growing up and moving out, it’s getting harder and harder for them. I just heard one report that the average first time home buyer is 39 years old.
Jamie Thompson (25:30):
Now that blows me away because at 22, we’ve purchased our first home in Taylor, which was a three bedroom on a slab with a shed. We had two children. I was a stay at home mom. My husband made $10 an hour and we purchased a $67,000 home in Taylor. That American dream is so far out of reach for this generation, and I think that it’s going to get more complicated as we get an elderly population in how we’re going to support and take care of them because the dynamics are changing within our families. The cost of pharmaceuticals, people that are aging have comorbidities and the cost of inhalers, that’s a big one. That is an insane cost that Medicare and even the different plans that they’re purchasing is not covering. So if you have a senior citizen who brings in, say, about $2,000 a month, but their medications cost $600 a month on top of a premium that they’re paying and supposedly having Medicare and social security that they’ve paid into their whole lives, how can they, you know, then now they’re down to $1,400, you know, start talking about the cost of groceries, gas, and property taxes.
Jamie Thompson (26:39):
They don’t have enough money to make it. So those are some really, really serious conversations. We’re going to have to start having. That we’re going to have to upset the system in order to be able to take care of our elderly.
Amanda Sears (26:51):
Thank you, Representative Thompson. I really appreciate you joining us today. Thank you. If you have any questions about services or programs The Senior Alliance offers, you can call us at (734) 722-2830 or email us at info@thesenioralliance.org. Information about our organization, programs, or services we offer can be found on our website at www.thesenioralliance.org. And you can find us on social media by searching for The Senior Alliance. Thank you.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
Inside The Senior Alliance is a production of The Senior Alliance and Blazing Kiss Media.
