Most of Oregon’s coordinated care organizations — the groups that oversee the Oregon Health Plan across most of the state — are for-profit businesses. That’s no good, says state Rep. Mitch Greenlick, D-Portland, and he hopes to change the system next year. But where is his proof that for-profit CCOs are failing Oregonians?

The Legislature created CCOs in 2011, choosing not to require them to be nonprofits. Most are for-profit companies, not the nonprofits group Greenlick favors.

Trillium, in Lane County, got Greenlick’s attention. Trillium is a for-profit company that was sold last year, a move that brought a tidy sum to its 200-plus investors. That investors made money on the sale of an organization run with state and federal tax dollars has Greenleaf and others looking for alternatives. He never has believed that CCOs should be for-profit companies, though he so far has been unable to persuade even a majority of his fellow Democrats in the Legislature that the current system is somehow bad for consumers.

CCOs get money from the state based on how many patients they serve. In return, the CCOs provide medical care, run their CCOs and can make a profit.

The state has been monitoring 33 metrics to see if CCOs “are effectively and adequately improving care, making quality care accessible, eliminating health disparities, and controlling costs for the populations that they serve.” The state’s reports on the performance of CCOs have been overwhelmingly positive. It hasn’t highlighted problems with for-profits. And just because an organization is a nonprofit does not mean it is immune to problems with money or providing health care.

Oregon’s CCOs are regulated at every turn. Without proof that for-profit CCOs are somehow cheating their clientele or the state of Oregon because they are for-profit, they should not be banned.