We welcome your support!

The Free Choice Foundation is a grass-roots movement and welcomes support from both the foreign community of Japan and the Japanese public. Here are some ways in which you can help:

 

To start with, please join our Petition Drive . . .

You'll find a form called 'Stand with Free Choice' on the homepage of this site. Please take a few moments to fill it out - along with any comments or feelings you have about health care issues in Japan - and click the 'Declare your Support' button. Your comments will be added to our Petition to be sent to the Japanese government. If we don't tell the government the problems that we are faced with, they will probably never know. An example might be, 'I visit a foreign doctor in Tokyo and he does not accept national health insurance, so I need private insurance to cover the expense.' We already have some politicians interested in our movement and they sincerely want to hear from us, so please give your views.

 

Tell your friends . . .

While Free Choice will be running ads in newspapers and magazines, nothing works better than good old word-of-mouth. Please ask your friends to visit this site to find out who we are, what we are about and what we are doing, and encourage them to submit the Petition form.

 

Start an offline petition . . .

You can download a flyer and a petition form, print them out and start an offline petition. You can send the signed petitions to us by postal mail.

 

Make use of the internet . . .

The internet has become the tool of choice for grass-roots movements. Please post about our movement in your favorite forums, social networks and blogs. Most forums will allow you to include a link offsite. While each forum works a little differently, in most cases placing a link with "http://" as part of the URL will automatically turn the entry into a convenient clickable link. Here's our URL:

http://www.freechoice.jp/

Have a website of your own? We invite you to place a link to our site along with a paragraph or article about our movement. Obama for America is an excellent example of what a grass-roots movement can do via use of the internet. And while we are not looking to run for President, a few minor changes in regulations are certainly attainable with a little support from people willing to stand for what they believe in.

 

 

If you belong to an organization . . .

If you have an affiliation with an organization such as a Chamber of Commerce or other group, please make them aware of the health care challenges that expatriates are faced with (especially the new Immigration Guideline) and politely ask their stance on the topic. Perhaps they would like to join forces with Free Choice in confronting these issues.

 

Contribute an article . . .

If you are a journalist, health care worker, or have some other specialty and would like to contribute an article, we would be very pleased to consider it for publication on our website.

 

Contact your ambassador or consulate general . . .

It is actually in the best interests of embassies if their citizen are enrolled in an expatriate health insurance which has a repatriation benefit. One of the biggest problems faced by embassies is repatriating the remains of a deceased citizen. Some embassies will pay the expense and then bill the family. Other won't and even go as far as asking other citizens to "chip in." The cost of repatriation of remains can easily cost one or two million yen. Needless to say, the private sector can relieve embassies of a tremendous burden.

 

Make a donation . . .

Like most organizations, we need funds to carry out our activities. At present, there are no paid employees in the Free Choice Foundation and all funds are used for advertising, website production and organizational overhead. If you would like to make a donation, please contact us.