Republican Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas — or “Doc Marshall” in his campaign ads — portrays himself as a kindly country physician, the sort who, in a bygone era, might have made house calls on elderly neighbors or answered midnight queries from anxious new parents. His website shows the gray-haired former OB-GYN decked out in scrubs, a swaddled infant cradled in each arm, and an ad from his 2020 Senate campaign boasts that “for 5,000 Kansans, life began” in Marshall’s “trusted hands.”
But now Marshall’s kindly country physician image is being challenged by a blockbuster investigation by The New York Times’ Sarah Kliff, who reported Monday that Marshall sued more than 700 patients for unpaid debts as small as $101and charged as much as 18% interest. Kliff reported that 81 people were arrested for missing court dates related to Marshall’s suits against them, and that 13 additional warrants were sought (though it’s unclear if any of those 13 led to arrests.) One former patient of Marshall said she unsuccessfully pleaded with authorities that they not arrest her in front of her daughter.
A spokesperson for Marshall attempted to deflect blame, telling the Times in a statement that Marshall treated patients regardless of their ability to pay and that “judges issue warrants when people repeatedly miss court dates, not doctors.”
A spokesperson for Marshall attempted to deflect blame, telling the Times in a statement that for decades, Marshall treated patients regardless of their ability to pay and that “judges issue warrants when people repeatedly miss court dates, not doctors.” But the newspaper cited court records that it said indicate Marshall’s lawyers repeatedly pushed for warrants. One of those attorneys said Marshall was not involved in decisions related to warrants, arrests or garnishing former patients’ paychecks, but he did set the 18% interest rate on the contracts he had patients sign.
A co-director of the health law program at George Washington University told the Times that when trying to get money they’re owed, some doctors use debt collectors, some file lawsuits and some let it go, but that garnishing paychecks and seeking arrests is “definitely on the extreme side.”
Marshall stopped practicing medicine after he won a seat in Congress in 2016, but the collection efforts lasted at least until 2021, according to the Times.
The report of Marshall’s former patients being arrested is shocking, but it isn’t surprising in the context of Republicans’ record of cruelty and hypocrisy regarding access to healthcare. Republicans are the party that has opposed and sought to repeal the Affordable Care Act every step of the way, and despite the party’s repeated promises to lower the costs of healthcare, an untold number of Americans are in the same dire straits as Marshall’s debtor patients: uninsured, sick and broke.
And it needs to be pointed out that as bad as his office policies were for his patients, the legislation he has supported is even worse for the country and his constituents. Marshall, like the majority of Republicans, opposed the extension of enhanced Obamacare subsidies, which expired at the end of 2025. Today, fewer Kansans are buying marketplace coverage, according to the Kansas Health Institute, and among those who do, average monthly premiums have risen nearly 17%. Nationally, Obamacare enrollment has dropped by about 2.6 million compared to last year, while premiums for enrollees have soared.
Marshall’s signature healthcare proposal, the Patients Deserve Price Tags Act, would require all providers to post their prices upfront. It’s a gimmick embraced by President Donald Trump.
He has styled himself as a champion of rural healthcare, praising the $50 billion “Rural Health Transformation Fund” included in last year’s wrongly named H.R. 1, or the “One Big Beautiful Bill.” That legislation will strip Kansas alone of nearly $3.9 billion in state and federal Medicaid funding over the next 10 years and throw thousands more Kansans into the ranks of the uninsured. It will push dozens of rural hospitals toward closure. Nationwide, the H.R. 1 will cut nearly $1 trillion from Medicaid over the next 10 years, and an estimated 7.6 million people will lose coverage.
Marshall’s signature healthcare proposal, the Patients Deserve Price Tags Act, would require all providers to post their prices upfront. It’s a gimmick embraced by President Donald Trump in his laughably incoherent, single-page “Great Healthcare Plan,” which was unveiled in January. Though Marshall has said his proposal would “bring down the cost of healthcare by $1,000 a month for a family,” the Congressional Budget Office concluded it would result in “very small price reductions,” and it’s easy to understand why. Patients worried about a potential tumor aren’t going to haggle over the price of an MRI, especially if there’s only one hospital in town. Also, do we expect patients facing open-heart surgery or a hip replacement to make finding the cheapest provider a priority?
Neither Marshall, nor Trump, nor the Republican Party as a whole has any legitimate ideas to address medical debt. Studies estimate that about 100 million Americans owe a total of $220 billion in medical debts, and the burden is likely to grow, thanks to the rising costs and the declining access to health insurance brought about by the GOP’s policies. KFF reported that nearly half of Americans said it is “difficult to afford” healthcare costs, about 3 in 10 have had trouble paying for care in the last year and more than a third have postponed needed care because of costs.
Despite that, Senate Republicans this year (including Marshall himself) blocked a Democratic plan to reinstate protections against aggressive collection practices for medical debt.
Marshall reportedly earned nearly $800,000 from his medical practice in 2015, his last full year delivering babies. According to his latest financial disclosures, he’s worth somewhere between $3 million and $9.8 million. At the same time, many of his former patients are trying to recover after having their finances shattered by medical debt or the arrests that were sought by people working on Marshall’s behalf. What a metaphor that is for his party’s policies.
The post The hypocrisy of the Republican doctor turned senator who sued 700 patients for unpaid debts appeared first on MS NOW.
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