As part of his bid for a second term, Republican Sen. Roger Marshall is eagerly telling Kansans about his record of support for rural healthcare, which has sparked pushback from his critics, who have emphasized his support for his party’s domestic policy megabill last year, which made matters far worse for rural hospitals.

But as it turns out, that’s not the only relevant detail in the senator’s background.

The New York Times did a detailed analysis of Marshall’s decades-long career as an obstetrician-gynecologist, during which time he “filed lawsuits against more than 700 patients with outstanding bills.” From the article:

Patients were arrested in 81 of those cases for missing court dates, the records show. In an additional 13 lawsuits, Mr. Marshall’s lawyers sought warrants but it is unclear whether an arrest occurred.

They also garnished patients’ paychecks and bank accounts. They routinely charged patients an 18 percent annual interest rate. The unpaid bills ranged from several thousand dollars to as little as $101.

In one especially striking instance, Marshall targeted a woman who had an unpaid $4,561 bill from an emergency hysterectomy three years earlier. When the patient and her husband missed a court date, the Republican’s lawyers pushed for an arrest warrant. They were soon after taken into custody on Easter weekend 2007 and spent two days in jail before their son could borrow the money to post bond.

The Times’ report, which has not been independently verified by MS NOW, added, “Some facing lawsuits were new mothers with outstanding bills from their deliveries. Most lived in Barton County, a rural area with above-average uninsured and poverty rates. Some patients the Times spoke with lacked insurance; others had health coverage but were responsible for part of their bill.”

To be sure, medical offices expect their invoices to be paid as a matter of course. Marshall’s Kansas practice is hardly unique on this front. But it’s tough for a far-right senator to present himself as a champion of regular people after he’s garnished his patients’ paychecks and bank accounts.

A spokesperson for the senator insisted that judges issue arrest warrants, not plaintiffs. That’s true, though let’s not overlook the fact that Marshall’s lawyers, in several instances, requested that local judges issue arrest warrants for patients who were too poor to pay their medical bills.

Time will tell whether, and to what extent, voters in Kansas hold this against Marshall, and given the fact that Kansas hasn’t sent a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since 1932, the Republican incumbent is probably optimistic that he can get away with a whole lot and win anyway, since he has an R after his name, and some voters are likely to care more about party identification than merit.

That said, Marshall isn’t just running against a sacrificial lamb this fall. On the contrary, Democratic voters nominated the Rev. Adam Hamilton, a Christian pastor who leads the nation’s largest Methodist congregation, and independent campaign analysts have already started tweaking their expectations for the Kansas race, recognizing Hamilton as the kind of candidate who might defy the odds and score an upset in a reliably red state.

Seeing how Marshall treated so many of his struggling former patients probably won’t help.

The post As a doctor, GOP’s Roger Marshall garnished patients’ paychecks, pushed arrest warrants appeared first on MS NOW.

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