Health insurance CEO admits to hiring private investigators to dig up dirt on patients, doctors and politicians
The CEO of a Texas health insurance company was fired after admitting before a DOGE panel of state lawmakers that he hired private investigators to spy on customers and obtain sensitive details about their lives.
Mark Sanders was dismissed from his duties as chief executive of Austin-based Superior HealthPlan after he testified before the Texas House Delivery of Government Efficiency Committee in a hearing on Medicaid procurement last week.
Sanders acknowledged Wednesday that private investigators were hired to surveil and glean background information on state lawmakers, journalists, healthcare providers, and patients.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Thursday that his office was launching an investigation into the company after Sanders' remarks.
'The allegations concerning Superior's actions, such as actions that were characterized as potentially blackmailing lawmakers to secure state contracts and surveilling private citizens to avoid paying legitimate claims, are deeply troubling,' he said in a statement.
'I will get to the bottom of this, uncover any illegal activity, and hold bad actors responsible.'
Sanders was subsequently dismissed on Thursday, Superior Healthplan's parent company told The Dallas Morning News.
'The conduct highlighted yesterday during the course of the Texas House Committee hearing is not reflective of our values nor is it a practice Centene's current leadership condones,' the company said in a statement.
While the embattled health insurance firm was already facing lawsuits for declining coverage, a series of private investigations allegedly started in 2017 when Sanders took over as CEO.
Sanders told committee members that the company had since abandoned the practice of so-called 'routine' background checks on customers.
'We've done what I would call general research,' he said. 'Anything that's publicly available.'
According to documents obtained by the Morning News, State Representative Giovani Capriglione, state Senator Charles Schwerner, and former state Senator Dawn Buckingham—all Republicans—are among the victims.
'Why would you go and run a background check, hire a private investigator to follow, to dig into the records of people who are your customers?' Capriglione asked.
'I don't think what any of us expected was for a health insurance company, funded mostly by Texas taxpayer dollars, to use some of those funds to hire private investigators,' he added.
The state representative accused the company of 'likely' having known about Sanders' actions before Wednesday's hearing.
Capriglione said that legislation has been filed to prevent similar incidents in the future, adding: 'If any company does something like this again, they will never get a government contract again.'
State Representative Tony Tinderholt said he was 'appalled' after reviewing a folder of alleged email correspondences between Sanders and firms hired to conduct the investigations – stating he initially thought they were a joke.
When asked if he was embarrassed about what was in the folder, Sanders replied: 'Yeah, I am.'
'It could be illegal. I don't know,' Tinderholt said before asking Paxton to investigate the matter and hold Superior Healthplan accountable.
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