Remember the favorite dodge of politicians asked how they plan to pay for their latest pie-in-the-sky program?  “We’ll eliminate fraud, waste and abuse,” they’d promise. Right.

Well, move over, FW&A, there’s a new dodge in town–improved information technology.  And it will apparently save enough to go a long way toward paying for the health care insurance of 46 million Americans! At today’s White House press corps briefing, CBS’ Chip Reid asked this  surprisingly good question:

“For people not terribly sophisticated about all this like me and average viewers out there, it just seems counter-intuitive that you would insure 46-some million people who aren’t insured now, and that would save money. How are you going to get the long-term deficits under control by health-care reform which means spending more for more people?”

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs bobbed and weaved, hemmed and hawed, rambled and meandered. But when he was done, he had pointed to only one measure—mentioning it twice—that would supposedly save money: improved information technology.

ROBERT GIBBS: What you will see the president talk about, going forward, and certainly contained in the recovery plan, are investments and steps that can be taken that will ultimately save this country money.  Health IT in the recovery plan will make health care more affordable.

A bit later, Gibbs leaned again on the IT crutch . . .

GIBBS: What the president will talk about and begin to outline over the course of the next several weeks is to build on the reforms that we saw in the recovery plan as I mentioned on health IT that will begin to streamline the process and make it more affordable.

Does anyone really believe that the government–masters of efficiency that they are–will be able to save enough through improved IT to insure 46 million people for a lifetime?  Come on, Gibby–you’re going to have to do better than this.