Marshall cuts rogue ad on medical debt lawsuits

Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) released a new campaign ad this past weekend responding to attacks toward him over his medical debt lawsuits against former patients, reportedly bucking his campaign team’s guidance.

“When I practiced as a small-town OB doc [obstetrician], often serving as the only OB in the middle of 40,000 people, my wife and I decided to take care of everyone, regardless of their ability to pay,” Marshall, dressed in a red button-up shirt while resting on a wooden fence, said in the minute-long ad.

“We wrote off hundreds of bills monthly, and one of every five patients received precare,” he continued. “Now, to ensure that 40,000 Kansans would still have access to care, we did have to keep the lights on. So we occasionally handed some accounts over to a collection agency, just like nearly every private medical practice does.”

Marshall said Kansas’s bill of rights “ensures that no one can go to prison because of indebtedness, and I would never wish that on any patient.”

He added that his “involvement in any patients’ account ended the minute it was turned over to an outside agency” and that he never called for anyone’s arrest.

“Kansas deserves to know the truth, and now you do,” he said before asking for Kansans’ votes on Tuesday.

The senator was a practicing OB-GYN until 2016, when he was elected to Congress.

Marshall filed lawsuits against more than 700 patients seeking payments on their medical debt during his time as a physician, The New York Times reported in September . At least 81 patients were arrested for missing court dates, while others faced wage garnishments.

The Kansas Republican wanted to respond to attacks from Kansas Senate candidate Adam Hamilton (D) with a new ad, four people with knowledge of the matter told the Times . His campaign’s top advisers urged him not to release the ad and suggested he focus on Hamilton’s record on immigration.

But the senator arranged for his own film crew to record and release the ad without the knowledge of at least some of his top aides, the outlet reported.

Some campaign advisers moved to stop the ad from being released, but Marshall sent it to people outside the campaign, two people briefed on Marshall’s text exchanges told the Times.

“I would have been glad to put it out much, much sooner,” Marshall told The Wall Street Journal . “Constantly on the trail, I’ll have town halls, meetings with people here and they ask me, will you explain it to me? And so I keep explaining it everywhere I go, and people just requested a video one time, so we get it.”

Marshall previously sent a cease-and-desist letter to Hamilton in September after the Democrat released an ad that focused on a woman who was sued over medical debts to Marshall. That woman, Meischa Zimmerman, said she was arrested after failing to make a monthly payment of $50 toward her medical debt to Marshall.

Zimmerman, whose story has drawn attention as the campaign neared Election Day, filed a class-action lawsuit against Marshall and his medical practice on Thursday, The Washington Post reported . She accused Marshall of setting up a “callous and predatory” debt collection scheme that took advantage of her and other patients.

Republicans fear that the lawsuits could cause the “ perfect storm ” that would open Kansas up to having a Democratic senator for the first time in almost a century. President Trump defended Marshall earlier this month, saying he was “given a ‘bum rap’ because he was mandated by Law to request money owed from patients.”