@moneybagley asked, "What do you think is the biggest factor that contributes to the rise in healthcare costs?"
I think that the answer to this question is unregulated greed. Hospitals in the United States are able to exploit laws surrounding healthcare in order to make very large profits off of people in helpless situations without much restriction. As far as I know, one of the main reasons for this is lies in the way that Certificate of Need laws (CON laws) are set up.
According to the National Conference of State Legislators, "CON programs primarily aim to control health care costs by restricting duplicative services and determining whether new capital expenditures meet a community need." There are two immediate problems with this.
The first problem is in the "restricting duplicative services" part. Let's say that some group of people decide that the hospitals in their city are too expensive, and they want to start up their own hospital and provide cheaper services. But let's say there are already three hospitals in that city. What would the three hospitals that are already established think of the possibility of a group of people starting up a new hospital in order to undercut their prices? They would think of it not only as competition, but also as a threat, and would do whatever they could to prevent it from being established. And they can through CON laws, because in order for the fourth hospital to start up, they have to receive a CON from the hospitals that are already there. Obviously, their response will probably "no."
The second issue is similar, and it lies in "determining whether new capital expenditures meet a community need." This makes it even easier for large hospitals to prevent other hospitals from being formed; they can simply appeal to the government that a theoretical new hospital either wouldn't be able to meet community needs or is unnecessary for meeting community needs (they would probably claim that they were already meeting community needs effectively).
In summary, I think the biggest factor that contributes to the rise in healthcare costs is the corruptness of both CON laws and of greedy hospitals doing what they can to prevent competition. As for solutions to this: it's tricky! Two possibilities I can think of solution are (1) allowing for regulation at the federal level and (2) making hospitals privatized.