She said that Wyoming’s rural nature wasn’t a satisfactory explanation for the high hospital costs; she pointed to other rural states like Michigan, which had hospitals that paid closer to Medicare. But there were rural, Western states like Montana and Colorado that had high costs closer to Wyoming.

Evidence of high costs

Still, the study is not a surprise in that it shows Wyoming has high health care costs. That was anecdotally considered true for some time, and recent data has provided further evidence to show that Wyoming has some of the highest health care costs in the nation. And the RAND report doesn’t offer solutions — one of the report’s authors told the Star-Tribune that they didn’t look at why or what’s next.

What the report does is give policymakers here — and Ladd’s group specifically — more evidence that the insurance they provide is being charged significant amounts.

“Employers can exert pressure on their health plans and hospitals to shift from (the) current pricing system to one that is based on a multiple of Medicare or another similar benchmark,” RAND researcher Chapin White said in a statement.