Roger Marshall's old medical bills have landed him in court — this time as the one being sued.
On Thursday, October 29, a class-action lawsuit was filed in Barton County District Court accusing the Kansas senator and his former Great Bend practice, Heartland Regional OBGYN, of routinely charging patients illegal interest on unpaid medical bills, Kansas Reflector reported. The suit calls it a "callous and predatory" debt-collection scheme aimed at patients who were often low-income, uninsured or underinsured mothers.
The suit says the practice frequently charged 18% a year. Kansas law caps the interest on a written payment agreement at 15% a year unless another law specifically allows more.
Marshall declined to comment and sent questions to his communications team, which didn't immediately respond.
Sued over the bill for her baby
The lead plaintiff is Meischa Zimmerman. She was Marshall's obstetrics patient in 2009. According to the lawsuit, his practice sued her over a $3,596 bill for delivering her child — plus 18% interest a year. Collecting on that debt led to her being arrested on three separate occasions, the filing says.
Zimmerman is not a new name. She appeared in a TV ad for Marshall's Democratic opponent, Adam Hamilton, and Marshall's lawyers sent Hamilton a cease-and-desist letter over it. That letter argued about why she was arrested — not whether she was.
The lawsuit says many of Marshall's patients had no health insurance, or had plans with high deductibles and co-pays that didn't cover what he charged. Some, it says, had "to decide between paying medical bills or buying groceries."
What the suit claims
The complaint makes four claims:
- Usury — charging more interest than Kansas law allows.
- Unjust enrichment — keeping the interest collected above the legal cap.
- Bad faith — enforcing contract terms to collect excessive interest without telling patients.
- Breach of fiduciary duty — failing to act in patients' best interest and failing to tell them the rate was over the state limit.
The patients want the case certified as a class action, and they're asking for their money back plus damages to be set by a jury. "Obviously, I think a jury will place a dollar value on our complaint over charging 18% usury rate on medical debt," local attorney Kent Roth said.
The complaint also explains why the case isn't too late: it says the filing deadline was paused because patients only learned the rates were illegal from news reports in September and October 2026.
How we got here
The suit builds on reporting we've already laid out. In September, the New York Times found that Marshall's practice took more than 700 patients to court over unpaid bills, and that 81 of them were arrested after missing court dates.
Marshall's answer was that this is how medical billing works. The Kansas City Star tested that by reviewing medical-debt lawsuits from about 150 Kansas practices — and found that Marshall's 18% rate was the highest of the bunch. The lawsuit cites both the Times and the Star.
Earlier in the same week the suit was filed, more than 750 Kansas medical professionals signed an open letter opposing Marshall's reelection that cited his debt-collection practices, Kansas Reflector reported.
A senator who writes health policy
This isn't just about Marshall's past as a doctor. In the Senate, he sits on the Finance and Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committees — two of the panels that write the country's health care laws. He is asking Kansans for another six years to make the rules for a health system in which families already choose between medical bills and groceries.
A doctor whose practice charged new mothers 18% interest — more, the suit says, than state law allowed — in collection cases that ended with some of them in handcuffs — is now one of the people deciding what patients pay.
What the lawsuit alleges
A class-action lawsuit filed October 29, 2026, accuses Sen. Roger Marshall and his former OB-GYN practice of charging patients 18% annual interest on medical debt, above the 15% Kansas allows. The lead plaintiff, Meischa Zimmerman, says she was sued over a $3,596 bill for the delivery of her child and arrested three times as the practice tried to collect. The suit asks a jury to award restitution and damages to the patients charged that rate.
Source
- Marshall sued for charging 'callous and predatory' 18% interest rate on medical debt in Kansas — Kansas Reflector, October 30, 2026
