TRAPPED in Japan, thanks to healthcare concerns

[DaveinJapan]

I don't want to pretend that my situation is even close to what others are going through with healthcare bankruptcies, having to chose between seeing the doctor or paying the gas bill, or worse. I can not express in words how horrible I find these situations to be when I read about them. What should be a basic human right has destroyed families and even killed thousands of people in America and it is absolutely tragic.

As for myself, I guess it's a little pathetic to express my own concerns on this one but I feel isolated from my home country over this.

I came to Japan about 10 years ago on an exciting sort of "journey", I got a great job offer and I found myself here, and then back again until I finally settled down for a while (Japanese wife, now we have a family etc...). But I never considered my situation "permanent" until recently. As we've discussed as a family, even though we might want to, moving back to America is simply unacceptable while the health care deficiencies are still so great (at least we know that here in Japan we'll never go bankrupt over it or lose a family member due to lack of care).

So at this point I feel trapped, though hopeful. But there is no way that I can bring my family to America where I feel they ALL want to be, so long as I can't promise that we won't be ruined by an impossible health care system. I sincerely hope that the health care mess can be fixed somehow, but for now my family conversations have revolved more around "can we perhaps live in Canada? or England?" rather than the place we'd all rather be.