The report “Prolonging Longevity: Population Aging in East Asia and the Pacific” released by the World Bank in Beijing recently mentions that in countries such as Japan, Korea and China, overtreatment is evident in the elderly population, with a sharp rise in hospitalization rates after age 65, more average hospital days and hospitals providing acute care taking on the role of nursing facilities. In China, an estimated 30 to 50 percent of hospitalizations can be treated on an outpatient basis. According to the report, the health care system in East Asia is an inefficient hospital-centered system, with rapid aging and a rising burden of chronic disease making the need for cost containment increasingly urgent. Primary health care facilities do not yet have the capacity to effectively manage chronic diseases, and older patients often do not receive timely and effective treatment, resulting in acute complications and duplication of care, driving up health costs. In most countries in East Asia, patients pay a large proportion of their health care expenditures out-of-pocket; in China, 18 percent of elderly households pay more than 25 percent of their overall household expenditures for medical care. The report recommends that the health care systems in East Asian countries should shift from hospital-centered to primary care-centered, strengthen the division of labor among different levels of health care institutions, provide continuous and long-term services for patients with chronic diseases, and carry out corresponding reforms in the way health insurance is paid.