Roger Marshall's ties to hospital profiteers unmasked in scathing report

Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall, a Republican, has long been tied in business and politics to a private equity executive whose hospital investments have repeatedly gone bust, according to an American Prospect investigation by David Dayen and Maureen Tkacik.

Marshall and Dan Tasset of Nueterra have been partners since 1998, when they co-owned a surgical center in Great Bend, Kansas. Marshall’s family later invested in Tasset-run funds. The Prospect says Nueterra has a record of acquiring hospitals that later fail, naming two in Missouri and one in Florida.

Tasset-linked money has also flowed to Marshall, according to the report. Nueterra employees have given him over $218,000 in the past decade, including $47,600 from Tasset himself, and a Tasset-affiliated company gave $100,000 to a super PAC that backed Marshall’s 2020 Senate win. Marshall’s son has worked for a Tasset-owned company since 2019, and a member of Tasset’s family worked in Marshall’s office as an intern and later a junior staffer.

The Prospect reported that Marshall repeatedly pushed bills to loosen rules on physician-owned hospitals, a model Tasset’s firms rely on, and in one case introduced legislation that helped companies in which his family held stakes.

Two Missouri hospitals tied to Nueterra, Callaway and Audrain, shut down after running up millions in unpaid bills. The Prospect says workers’ insurance premiums were deducted from paychecks but never paid, and Labor Department interim findings put worker damages at $5.4 million.

The authors said they found no evidence Marshall benefited from the entities that ran those hospitals into the ground. Tasset didn’t respond to a request for comment.

“Senator Marshall operates in full compliance with all applicable rules and laws,” said Steve Roberts, counsel for the Marshall campaign.