Hospital system overwhelmed

[The Grand Nudger]

Population increase is predictable and relatively static, unforeseen disease or disaster is not. 

So are hypothetical what if cases, and the metrics by which we judge our capacity.  We know, because of our for-profit fun, how many people can get sick in a given area before the hospitals start calling other hospitals looking for beds.  So, say we posited that a sudden 10% uptick in bed residency happens, what will that cost in that momnent, to rapidly deploy that additional capacity?  That's a knowable number.
If the cost of maintaining even a fraction of that ten percent every day (as a buffer against such an eventuality) is less than the cost of rapidly constructing 10% of identical capacity.....well. Now, another fun number, how often do we see those upticks? Historic data exists. Things aren't "unforeseen" so much as "unscheduled".

All of this is to point out that the reason we don't do that (or do it to a greater extent) isn't that there's just no way to know or plan. There is, and we do. Planning and doing those things would (and does) impact quarterlies at present, though - and that's really all there is to it in a life for profit model.