Today's Debate: Is computing the magic bullet for health care costs?

There are many areas where America's political parties disagree on health care.

But here's one area where they do agree. They're both demanding the health care system go digital.

This becomes clear on studying former Gov. Mitt Romney's health care plan, released late last week.

As you might expect, Romney's plan leans heavily on the idea of private health insurance. But when you open his PowerPoint,  you find that his key plank for saving money is the same as with HillaryCare -- computing.

He gets there in a slightly different way, with carrots rather than sticks. But his plan for cutting prices is still based on personal health records, on networked systems, and on heavy tech spending.

All this makes the skeptic in me take notice.

If everyone agrees that networked computing is the key to health care reform, could there indeed be something wrong with it? Or is computing merely a rhetorical "free lunch" everyone claims they are for, until it comes time to actually do something?[poll id=3]