SALEM — Five years ago, lawyer Charlie Ringo left the state Legislature, having lost faith in its ability to tackle tough issues. On Monday, he drove from Bend back to Salem, hoping to prove his old self wrong.

Ringo, who represented Washington County in the state Senate, moved to Bend in 2006. Two years later, he joined a crusade that has the potential to change how Oregon regulates health insurance rates. Specifically, Ringo challenged a rate increase and unearthed intriguing state documents that on Monday starred in a state Senate hearing.

There, Ringo testified about his experience representing Karen Kirsch, a Portland retiree who protested her insurer’s 26 percent increase in 2008.

Ringo called Oregon’s rate review process a “joke.” He said the documents he dug up show that the state gave in to politics, approving a rate increase that cost Oregonians $30 million.

Ringo was accompanied by Kirsch’s husband, Larry, who had been part of Karen’s decision to challenge the rate increase. Though Larry Kirsh says he’ll receive no compensation for the case, it’s his profession to review rate increases — he is a health economist and expert witness who has consulted for several states. Many of them, he said, conduct more aggressive rate reviews than Oregon does.

An administrative law judge denied Ringo’s rate challenge, but the lawyer has appealed, and the case is pending before the Oregon Court of Appeals. Even if he doesn’t win, Ringo hopes the case will lead to victory on the political front.

He’s no expert, he said, but “the thing that I know for sure is that this Oregon rate system is not protecting consumers.”

In one state Insurance Division e-mail, a state analyst who reviewed the proposed Regence rate increase wrote that only a far smaller rate increase of about 5 percent could be “actuarally justified” by the Regence application.

Then came what Ringo calls “the secret meeting” — a meeting in April 2008 between a top Regence official and the head of the state department that oversees the insurance division. Ringo said the state kept no records of the meeting. In fact, he’s not even sure of the specific date it happened.

In the end, the state approved the Regence rate increase using a justification formulated by the same analyst who’d earlier said it would be unjustified. The e-mail the analyst sent bearing the new justification bore the subject line, “Gaming the system.”

Neither the documents nor Ringo’s charge is new — he’s been talking about the case since early 2009. But what’s different is that some lawmakers appear intent on taking action based on it. Some want to change the law to make the rate review process more public, which neither the state insurance division nor Regence particularly want.

Regence is watching the Senate efforts carefully. A spokeswoman for the insurer, Samanta Meese, said she listened to part of the hearing and was briefed on the rest. She defended the rate increases as justified and said she thinks the state does enough to inform Oregonians about rate increases. “At Regence, we support transparency,” she said.

She also said that the “secret meeting” was just a routine get-together that’s typical of any rate review process.

Teresa Miller, head of the Insurance Division, said she could not comment on Kirsch’s case while Ringo’s appeal is pending, and therefore could not respond to the documents Ringo has released from the case. She said that a 2009 law had already done enough to beef up state oversight, and that new laws would be unnecessary.

“The Regence issue was three years ago now,” she said. “Our process is … completely different.”

Similarly, Sen. Brian Boquist, R-Dallas, said he appreciated Ringo’s testimony, but he remains unconvinced that “beating up” insurers will keep costs down.

Sen. Chip Shields, D-Portland, who chairs the committee, praised Ringo’s efforts. Shields, who said he is persuaded that public rate-review hearings would help keep insurance rates down, also had other experts testify on Monday.

But, he said, Ringo’s experience on the case was key, as it “took the theoretical to the practical, in giving us a clear lens to how the system really works.”

Ringo’s interest in health care is a new direction for him.

He served in the U.S. Air Force before moving to Oregon, where he studied environmental law at Northwestern School of Law.

He eventually became chairman of the Oregon Sierra Club. He successfully ran for the state House of Representatives in 2000 and for the Senate in 2002. He served as chairman of the Senate Environment and Land Use Committee.

Despite his green credentials, Ringo’s efforts to tackle problems put him on the wrong side of some environmentalists when he threw his support behind 2004’s Measure 37. The measure, backed by conservative property-rights activists, allowed landowners to be compensated if regulations decreased their property value.

Later, in 2005, he became the butt of jokes among some Democrats after he joined with Republicans to pass a bill opposed by the majority Senate Democrats. It called for a nonpartisan Legislature.

He decided not to run for a second Senate term because he wanted to spend more time with his “wonderful” young sons, now 11 and 12 years old. Ringo said he also was tired of the partisanship, the influence of money in Salem, and the feeling that it blocked anything from getting done.

“The Republicans and Democrats, they both have strong allegiances to their major funders,” he said. “It was so hard to make progress in our government on the most important issues.”

In Bend, Ringo practices business law, but continues to try to create change — only this time from outside Salem. In addition to his health care work, he belongs to the board of Central Oregon LandWatch.

On Monday, standing in the hall of the Capitol before and after the hearing, Ringo found it hard to finish a sentence, as a steady stream of friends and former colleagues approached him to extend warm wishes.

“It is good to be back,” he said with a smile. “Just for a day.”