Fact Check: Is Trump's claim law required Roger Marshall to sue patients over unpaid bills true?

PARK CITY, KANSAS: President Donald Trump claimed the law required Sen. Roger Marshall to sue patients who failed to pay their medical bills and that Marshall could have faced legal consequences if he did not collect the money.

The claim has drawn attention to Marshall’s past debt collection practices, including lawsuits against patients and interest charges on unpaid bills. Let's fact-check the claim.

Claim: Trump said the law required Roger Marshall to sue patients

Trump has claimed that the law required Marshall to take strong action to collect unpaid bills. However, Marshall has also said that he wrote off many patients’ debts. Trump even claimed Marshall could have faced arrest if he had not pursued the unpaid bills.

Marshall, a Republican obstetrician-gynecologist running for re-election in Kansas, has faced criticism for his debt-collection practices. Reports shared that he filed hundreds of lawsuits against patients with unpaid medical bills and charged them 18% annual interest. The report also said dozens of his patients were arrested after missing court dates in debt collection cases.

Speaking at a rally in Kansas on Monday, October 19, Trump said, “He was given a bum rap because he was mandated by law to request, strongly, money owed from patients. You’re not allowed not to do it. You have to, by law, go after those people. And they made it like, oh, he was some kind of a Shylock-type guy,” invoking an antisemitic stereotype.

Trump added, “And if he didn’t make these requests, he would be breaking the law, he would have been breaking a very strong criminal law, and he would be subject to criminal arrest and liability.”

Fact Check: No law required Marshall to sue patients

The claim is false. No law required Roger Marshall to sue patients who could not pay their medical bills.

State and federal laws allow doctors and hospitals to decide how to handle unpaid bills. They can forgive debts for patients facing financial hardship or use other methods to collect payments without going to court.

Marshall told CNN’s Manu Raju last week, “Each year, our hospital gave away millions of dollars of charity care.” He also said, “We wrote off hundreds of people’s bills every month.”

No law requires doctors to charge 18% interest on unpaid bills or allows authorities to arrest them simply for forgiving the medical debts of patients who cannot afford to pay.

The Kansas City Star, which also fact-checked Trump’s claim, found that Marshall’s 18% interest rate was unusually high in Kansas, even compared with other medical practices that sued patients.

In an unsigned email, the White House cited two federal laws, one criminal and one civil. These laws require healthcare providers who treat patients enrolled in certain federal benefit programs to make reasonable efforts to collect payments in most cases.

However, they also allow providers to forgive debts when patients face genuine financial hardship.

The White House’s own supporting document stated that the federal inspector general overseeing health services “has confirmed that it will not enforce the (two laws) against providers who waive copays or deductibles due to genuine financial hardship.”