THE GOOD PROVIDER

Monday, Feb. 10, 1997 By MICHAEL WEISSKOPF/WASHINGTON
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By the standards of last year's high-rolling presidential race, Donna Shalala's appearance at a Democratic dinner for business executives seemed like just another effort to lend star quality to one of Bill Clinton's ambitious fund-raising ventures. But to Alan Solomont, a Massachusetts nursing-home mogul who was host to the June 3 event in Washington, the Secretary of Health and Human Services shone brightest of all. A few weeks before the dinner, Solomont had visited Shalala with a team of lobbyists to press for less stringent enforcement of nursing-home regulations. Solomont, a leading Democratic fund raiser and an occasional jogging partner of Clinton's, kept on lobbying throughout the campaign to win major concessions for his industry over the objections of consumer advocates. He got much of what he wanted.

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Ever since questions were raised about the legality and propriety of Clinton's fund-raising practices, another big question has hung in the air. What, besides overnight stays in the Lincoln Bedroom, did the large donors get for their money? Last week, speaking at the first news conference of his second term, Clinton asserted, "I never made a decision for anybody because they were contributors of mine." But the story of Solomont--his giving, his lobbying and his rise to become the Democratic Party's new finance chairman--suggests that at least one Democrat's generosity might have yielded a policy payoff. It also suggests to critics that people like Solomont might not be the best suited to carry out Clinton's solemn promises to, as he said last week, "clean up the system."

Solomont gave the party $160,000 and helped raise $1.1 million more from nursing-home owners. But his most remarkable--and dubious--accomplishment was successfully lobbying the President's appointees for regulatory changes while chairing his party's Business Council of $10,000-a-year donors. This is the same council that handed the Democratic National Committee $1 million a week after Clinton heralded its "reform" era with such new leaders as Solomont.

A nationally recognized expert in elder care, Solomont, 45, is a registered nurse who built his ADS Group into one of the largest nursing-home chains in the Northeast. After supporting Clinton in 1992, he joined Washington's special-interest pleaders as the new Administration was finalizing nursing-home regulations that toughened enforcement of quality standards and resident rights. Solomont says he saw his role as a "bridge between the provider community and this Administration." Although health-care bureaucrats knew of his Clinton ties, he says, "I didn't approach them as a supporter of the President but as someone who honestly had something constructive to say."

He approached not only Shalala but also Medicare- and Medicaid-programs administrator Bruce Vladeck, whose office had written the sharper guidelines and who offered to consider revisions. Solomont says he was the "impetus" for at least two meetings with Vladeck and an exchange of letters. In one memo, Solomont asked Vladeck to review suggested changes: "Put it in your own words and send it back to us in a letter [to show] our mutual direction." To consumer advocates such as Toby Edelman of the National Senior Citizens Law Center, "it's disturbing they had access that ordinary people don't have."