Before he was a United States Senator, Roger Marshall delivered babies in Great Bend, Kansas. He still runs on it. It is the first thing his campaign tells you about him.
On September 8, 2026, The New York Times reported what else he did in those years. Marshall and his medical practice sued more than 700 of their own patients over unpaid bills. At least 81 of those patients were arrested after missing a court date. The practice garnished paychecks and bank accounts, charged 18 percent interest a year on what people owed, and went to court over bills as small as $101.
These were not wealthy people. They were his patients in Barton County, a rural part of Kansas the Times describes as having above-average poverty and uninsured rates. Some were new mothers with unpaid bills from their own deliveries.
What it looked like for the people he sued
The cases are not abstract. Reporters found the patients and asked them.
Kellie Clutts was taken to court over a $129 bill from a postpartum checkup — the visit a woman has after giving birth. Her baby was nine months old. Marshall's side eventually garnished her bank account. She told the Times: "I told them I could make partial payments, but it seemed like no matter what I said, they wanted the full amount at once."
Joe Vasquez and his wife were arrested over Easter weekend in 2007. The bill was $4,561, for an emergency hysterectomy she had needed three years earlier. They missed a court appearance. Marshall's lawyers asked a judge for a warrant. The couple spent two days in jail while their son borrowed the money to bail them out. The police took them, Vasquez told the Times, as their grandchildren were getting ready for an egg hunt.
Another woman, sued in 2004 over $1,200, wrote to the court asking not to be held liable for care she had received "for me and my twins (who I lost)."
That is the record. A doctor's office, in a small Kansas town, asking the county to arrest the women he had treated.
"Judges issue warrants, not doctors"
Marshall did not deny any of it. His spokeswoman, Payton Fuller, said that he had spent decades caring for patients regardless of their ability to pay, and that "judges issue warrants when people repeatedly miss court dates, not doctors."
That is true, and it is beside the point. A judge cannot issue a warrant nobody asked for. Marshall's lawyers were the ones who filed the cases, and they were the ones who asked for the warrants — dozens of times.
Nothing here required him to do any of it. Plenty of doctors write off small unpaid bills. Plenty of practices never sue a patient at all. Marshall's did it more than 700 times, and kept doing it for years.
He did well out of it
While this was happening, Marshall and eight other doctors opened a four-bed surgical center in Great Bend that grew into a full-service hospital generating tens of millions of dollars in revenue. He chaired its board. His most recent financial disclosure puts his worth between $3 million and $9.8 million.
He stopped practicing medicine in 2016, when he was elected to Congress.
What he has done with the seat
Marshall sits in the Senate as a physician on both committees that write health care law — Finance, including its Health Care subcommittee, and Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. Here is what he has done with that.
In March 2017, he explained to the health care news site STAT why some people go without medical care. "There is a group of people that just don't want health care and aren't going to take care of themselves," he said, in remarks TIME picked up. He had spent the previous two decades suing people who could not pay him.
In December 2025, he said he expects the health insurance subsidies to expire, shrugging on Newsmax that "some people's premiums are going to go up some."
And when Kansas doctors warned him that his vote on Trump's budget bill would cost their patients care, he said there were no Medicaid cuts at all and called the claim a lie — while Kansas is projected to lose $3.9 billion, $2.7 billion of it out of hospitals.
Kansans who want to ask him about any of this have had a hard time finding him. He has not held an open town hall in more than 500 days, despite once bragging about holding 105 of them.
What a medical bill does to a family
Medical debt is not like other debt. Nobody chooses an emergency hysterectomy. Nobody shops around during labor. You get the care, and the bill comes later, and it is a number you had no way to plan for.
What Marshall's practice added to that was 18 percent interest, a court summons, money taken out of a paycheck, and — for 81 people — a jail cell. A $129 bill for a postpartum visit became a garnished bank account. A $4,561 bill became an arrest on Easter weekend.
Marshall is now asking Kansas to send him back to Washington for another six years to make health care policy for the country.
What the record shows
Roger Marshall's medical practice took more than 700 of its own patients to court over unpaid bills, charged them 18 percent annual interest, garnished their wages and bank accounts, and asked judges for arrest warrants when they missed a hearing. At least 81 patients were arrested. The bills ran as low as $101, and some belonged to new mothers in one of the poorer parts of Kansas. The doctor who did that now sits on both Senate committees that write health care law, has said poor people "just don't want health care," and voted for a bill projected to cost his state $3.9 billion in Medicaid.
Source
Reporting by Sarah Kliff, "Roger Marshall Sued 700 Patients for Debts; 81 Were Arrested. Now He's a Senator.", The New York Times, September 8, 2026. Photo: official U.S. Senate portrait, via Wikimedia Commons.
