How does japan pay for so many hospital beds? They have almost 5x what we have
Japan has not had a surplus since the early 90's and it seems unlikely it will generate one this decade [1], challenging traditional economic wisdom on the consequences of financing your country by printing money (the Japanese central bank is key buyer of government issued bonds).
As a result, Japan has the highest government debt level in the developed word, well over 200% of GDP [2].
[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-economy-fiscal/japa...
although the state of the UK seems to suggest that this is a necessary rather than sufficient condition.
As others have pointed out, I suspect the way beds are counted is key.
ICUs often have step down units and high dependency units and so on. The way these are counted is going to matter.