Health Cost

How is the cost of healthcare calculated? Mine has jumped a ridiculous amount recently with no new hospitals built.

The majority of cost of the healthcare system comes from hospitals buying supplies on the market. If these supplies are going up in price due to shortages this can cause a jump in overall healthcare costs.

Thank you. I had a sudden spike of several billion and it surprised me.

A spike is strange if you did not add hospitals.

shortages on the market have pushed prices up for many products, including products that are used by health, education, transportation and the army.

It just keeps climbing even as I close hospitals, I close some and get a few game days with savings then it climbs again. I have corporations that produce "medical materials" and "medical supplies" in my empire, they have been in shortages for a long time but these growing costs continue.

Its the worst in my main nation "The Kingdom of Hodg" on White Giant.

Also what items go into hospitals, is it just Medical Materials and Medical supplies or are there other inputs?

I looked into it.
I see some small increase and a small jump (1.4 B), after the last upgrade where some base pricing of products was increased a bit to improve corporate profits.

The profit surge will be much larger than the increased cost.

but the main reason for the very high cost on health in that country is the high health index.
>180 is too high.
It reduced death rates a bit but at a very high cost,
130 will be enough.
the index is increasing because the population numbers decline a bit.

I have been closing hospitals and decreasing the index, but within a game year the costs increase to cover the decrease in hospital numbers. I have the 180 to maintain game levels, before the costs started going crazy about a month ago I was about to make level 9.

I will try canceling my common market contracts and see if I can purchase medical goods at lower quality to save money.

You can reduce the number of hospitals and reduce the index by at least 30 points.

there are shortages on the markets and products may have increased in price.
on the other hand, corporations became more profitable with higher product pricing and countries earn more.