Although we include longterm care beds as ordinary beds in our analysis tracing back to 1971, long-term care beds are evidently associated with LOS. However, given the new categorisation in 2001 of longterm care beds reflecting the governmental policy of reducing LOS by differentiating between acute and chronic care beds, including both types of beds allowsus to pay close attention to health-care provision policies drafted in the Medical Care Law in the following analysesand discussions.