Advocacy Group, Texans Lil Fragile Voices, Launches Campaign Against Superior HealthPlan

DALLAS, June 15, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Nonprofit organization, Texans Lil Fragile Voices, announces today that Medicaid Managed Care reform activist Linda Badawo has launched a campaign to end Superior HealthPlan's contract with the state of Texas for the management of a health program for foster children.

The campaign, Sick of Superior, will spotlight Superior HealthPlan's track record of putting profits before patients and will encourage additional Texas families to share their stories about Superior. It will also seek to pressure lawmakers to hold the company accountable and make needed reforms to the managed care system.  

The campaign begins as Linda marks the fifth anniversary of a tragedy at the hands of Superior that left her adoptive son with serious brain damage. In 2016, Superior repeatedly refused to provide then 1-year-old D'Ashon Badawo with one-on-one 24-hour nurse care as prescribed by D'Ashon's doctors. Linda, as well as D'Ashon's doctors and nurses, feared that D'Ashon would pull out his breathing tube when a nurse was not present to reinsert it, threatening his life. Following Superior's repeated denials of 24-hour nurse case, D'Ashon dislodged his tube while he did not have a nurse and suffered irreparable brain damage.

Superior, a subsidiary of Centene Corporation, has been awarded the contract to run Texas's foster care health program known as STAR Health since 2008. In exchange for a flat monthly payment per person, Superior controls and manages the medical care of Texas foster children. But in August, the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) will be accepting proposals from other providers. It is expected to award the next contract for the program in February 2022.

"There needs to be accountability for companies like Superior," said Linda. "We can't continue to allow Superior to operate with impunity. Texas families and taxpayers deserve better."

Linda, a pediatric nurse who immigrated to the United States from Nigeria when she was 19, started fostering children with complex medical needs from her home in Mesquite, TX in 2013. She is a founder of Texans Lil Fragile Voices, a nonprofit with a global mission to relieve the plight of impoverished children, mandate health care for all, provide tools to end poverty, enhance the laws that govern the foster care system and provide adequate and timely health care for medically dependent children around the world. In December 2020, Linda published a book about her experience with Superior, "Double Trauma: Mismanaged Health Care in the Parent Foster System."

The Sick of Superior campaign brings renewed attention to an ongoing lawsuit in which Linda has sued Superior alleging, among other claims, negligence and gross negligence over its denials of care for D'Ashon. The suit is proceeding in Texas state court, with the CEO of Centene scheduled to be deposed June 30th, and a trial expected to start September 13th.

The campaign also comes amid increasing scrutiny of Superior's parent, Centene Corporation, nationwide. One of the chief aims of the Sick of Superior initiative is to continue gathering stories in Texas, and across the United States, from families who have had medically dependent children suffer as a result of Centene's acts or omissions.

Beyond ending Superior's contract in Texas, Linda is seeking broader changes to the managed care system. She wants lawmakers to create a fair appeals system or a separate appeals system for Medicaid recipients who are denied care; increase oversight of managed care organizations; and identify, assess, and penalize corporations for misconduct.

"The system has failed so many families," said Linda. "We must and can do better."

SOURCE Texans Lil Fragile Voices