GOP Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas, an ObGyn doctor for decades before his election, filed lawsuits against approximately 700 patients with outstanding debts, according to a New York Times report.
An analysis of Kansas court records show that some of those patients owed as little as $101. Wages and bank accounts were garnished, and 81 patients were arrested for missed court appearances, while Marshall’s firm charged 18% interest on outstanding balances.
Approximately half of the lawsuits were filed in Marshall’s name, and the rest by Heartland Regional OBGYN, the medical practice he solely owned from 1998 to 2012 and then co-owned with another doctor from 2013 to 2019.
Some of those facing lawsuits were new mothers facing outstanding bills from their deliveries, and most lived in Barton County, an area of above-average levels of uninsured and poverty rates.
“I had every intention to pay, I was just struggling,” said Kellie Clutts, whom Mr. Marshall sued in 2015 over a $129 bill. Ms. Clutts said the charge was from a postpartum visit shortly after her daughter’s birth.
Marshall co-founded a surgical center that grew into a full-service hospital generating tens of millions of dollars in annual revenue. After being sworn into Congress in 2017, the lawsuits continued from the hospital he held a stake in until he sold in March of that year.
Marshall then used his voice as a medical doctor to try to dismantle the Affordable Care Act.
“Doc Marshall” is up for reelection in November.
His current campaign website says that he was often “the only OB-GYN in the area” in his largely rural region of the state. He has also highlighted his care of low-income patients. Sometimes, he said in 2017, women drove “over a hundred miles” to see him because he accepted Medicaid, the public health benefits program for the poor.
Raw Story also covered the report.