The benefits of having more beds per capita then ICU beds is likely beyond our expertise/understanding, in that I suspect most patients are not admitted straight to ICU, although they will if treatment in a regular bed is not longer adequate, and if there is not a regular bed available for a covid patient, I suspect they might deteriorate health wise pretty quick to then needing the ICU bed.
I don't see a clear "winner" here on per capita bed counts between Italy/US.
Reality check, that half the population is smarter then 50% of the people and it's a constantly contested fact.
