It's a lot of nonsense. The goal for lens designers in the film days was the same as it is now -- to approach (or achieve) apochromatic performance. That is, to design a lens that focuses all visible wavelengths of light on a single plane (or at a single point). That's not an easy thing to do.

It is true that some more modern lens designs come a lot closer to this ideal than typical older lenses. That has to do, though, with advances in materials (such as low-dispersion materials that produce reduced "rainbows" on refraction, and anomalous-dispersion materials that produce "backwards" rainbows) and construction, not with a change in design philosophy.

Failing to hit the apo target (something most lenses do, especially at shorter focal lengths/wider angles) results in lateral chromatic aberration (color fringes that you can see in areas of high contrast). As long as they aren't really bad, they can be corrected (often, the camera will do it for you if you are shooting JPEGs). RAW processing programs will often let you apply a lens profile to deal with both chromatic aberration and geometric distortions.

The only real "digital difference" I'm aware of (besides creating lenses specifically for the smaller formats of many digital cameras) is that greater attention is being paid to the antireflection coating at the rear of the lens, since the digital sensor is much more reflective than film, so flare originating behind the lens is a much greater concern.