Magdalena Carrasco, a former San Jose councilmember, once joined protests against one company’s hold over health care on the East Side. Today she’s helping HCA Healthcare make its most criticized move yet.
Carrasco, who left office in 2022 after serving two terms as East San Jose’s representative, now lobbies city officials and her former colleagues on behalf of HCA, which owns Regional Medical Center — the only hospital in East San Jose. The company plans to cut trauma, stroke and heart attack care at Regional while expanding Good Samaritan Hospital which serves the wealthier West Valley.
The Nashville-based company needed a local face for its interests after poor and uninsured patients rallied their neighborhoods against the plan to reduce services. That’s when HCA lobbyists turned to Carrasco, who spoke with city leaders five times last month for “updates on trauma center, STEMI, and Stroke services transitions” at Regional, city lobbyist reports show.
Carrasco started contacting city officials on HCA’s behalf in July — making unscheduled phone calls to East Side Councilmembers Peter Ortiz and Domingo Candelas on July 18. One week after her initial phone calls, lobbyist reports show Carrasco made another unscheduled call with Ortiz on July 24. Two days later, she made two scheduled meetings — one with Ortiz and another with Brisa Moreno, his deputy chief of staff and director of public policy.
Ortiz is the council’s most outspoken critic of HCA’s planned cuts at Regional, and voters elected him to District 5 in East San Jose when Carrasco termed out. Neither he nor Candelas responded to requests for comment.
Carrasco also didn’t respond to requests for comment.
“She’s corrupt as hell,” Aarón Reséndez, an East Side business consultant who unsuccessfully ran against Carrasco for city council in 2010 and 2014, told San José Spotlight. “If anyone knows Magdalena, it’s me.”
Reséndez is one of many patient advocates who shared personal stories about health care on the East Side in recent months, protesting Regional Medical Center’s service changes that are set to take effect Aug. 12.
Other local activists said Carrasco’s lobbying won’t stop their fight for critical health care services.
“Let’s just put it this way: It doesn’t matter if she’s representing or speaking on behalf of the hospital. It ain’t gonna change nothing. It aint gonna change what we’re demanding,” Gabriel Hernandez, director of the Si Se Puede Collective, told San José Spotlight.
Carrasco’s HCA lobbying is billed through DT Strategies, a firm specializing in business advocacy, lobbying, government affairs and public relations. Other lobbyists with the firm have done significantly more lobbying on behalf of HCA, including the firm’s principal, Eddie Truong, a local business leader and Santa Clara County Democratic Party delegate. Sean Kali-rai, a former city official who later became one of San Jose’s most prolific cannabis business advocates, is also lobbying councilmembers on behalf of HCA.
Truong declined to comment and Kali-rai didn’t respond.
Carrasco also works as a lobbyist for Silicon Valley Advisors, a firm run by Pete Carrillo that represents business interests like McDonald’s franchise owners and billboard giant Outfront Media.
Health care equity
HCA has systematically cut services at Regional Medical Center out of concern for its bottom line. When the hospital announced the closure of its maternity ward in 2020, Carrasco took the bullhorn to cheer on protesting health care workers. When a nurse went viral in 2018 over an anti-immigrant Facebook post, Carrasco demanded answers from the hospital as it weathered scrutiny.
Carrasco’s career as a public servant ended in 2022 — but not for a lack of trying.
She ran unsuccessfully that same year for the Santa Clara County Board of Education. Before that, Carrasco ran unsuccessfully to replace state Sen. Dave Cortese, when he termed out from the county Board of Supervisors in 2020. She announced another Board of Supervisors run for District 2 last year, but didn’t end up on the ballot. She also shares a child with embattled Los Angeles Councilmember Kevin de León, who was embroiled in scandal after a secret conversation with other city leaders — making racist remarks about political opponents and racial groups — was leaked and made public in 2022.
HCA at first planned to close the trauma center entirely, but backed off after public outcry. Instead, the company plans to downgrade Regional Medical Center’s Level 2 adult trauma center to a Level 3, which is an on call trauma center.
One of the East Side’s most vocal patient advocates, Latinas Contra Cancer Executive Director Darcie Green, said Carrasco’s pro-HCA advocacy isn’t helping the people she once served.
“This is not a significant step toward addressing (HCA’s) past and current shortcomings and it is certainly not a step towards improving care for the lives of the patients they continue to disregard,” Green told San José Spotlight. “Our demand remains the same: Restore our health care immediately.”
Contact Brandon Pho at [email protected] or @brandonphooo on X, formerly known as Twitter.
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