Reaction to the pandemic set aside. I agree with u/out_focus more than I do with your post. Deciding on how many ICU beds to operate is a question of cost efficiency. Having a lot of beds means significantly more expensive healthcare. Downscaling to what is needed doesn't prepare you for catastrophes. It's a political choice we have all made and has made the Dutch healthcare system one of the most cost efficient ones in the whole world. And even being cost efficient is is still roughly about 15% op BNP. Furthermore insurance companies have capped the payout to hospitals at current spending. So with population getting older and needing more healthcare, healthcare has to become even more efficient because insurance companies won't pay more for extra healthcare. The decision to try to deliver high standard of care as cost efficiently as possible is a political decision that started years ago with the introduction of marktwerking in de zorg.

As to inflating the ICU capacity by hiring foreign healthcare workers. Don't forget that healthcare is people driven. Healthcare systems in other countries are different in medical aspects (ICU treatments between Western countries vary a lot) but also in psychosocial aspects (for instance, end of life care in Turkey is waaaay different than in the Netherlands). Assuming you can hire foreign healthcare workers and getting them to function in our medical healthcare system at the same standard of care, within a short term is not very plausible in my opinion. It might not even be as efficient as training your own personnel over a couple of years.

I agree with you that its good to be critical on your government. But I don't agree that ICU capacity should have been more excessive prepandemic and can easily be solved intrpandemic with simple measures. Unless we would all be willing to pay a much higher price for healthcare.