HIMSS has similar hopes. "We are confident that when Congress carefully examines the well substantiated and significant potential of health information technology to control costs with a high return on investment, they will continue their historically bipartisan support for the meaningful use program," says Hodge. 

In the meantime, the policies and regulations put in motion by HITECH continue to do their work, and checks keep getting mailed out to meaningful users  -  some $7 billion so far.

Other portions of ARRA had similar frameworks set up to regulate the dispersal and efficacious use of government largesse. Grunwald points, for instance, to the IT-enabled "Smart Grid" electrical infrastructure program, which had a "much more ambitious timetable" than the HITECH Act, and dealt with challenges on getting funding moving to the right recipients at the right speed.

But even as HITECH was envisioned as long-term investment, it's arguable that not too many ARRA programs have seen its immediate success  -  and, crucially, visibility  -  as meaningful use.

"In less than three years, EHR adoption rates continue to increase, and interoperability and exchange of information across systems is continuing to improve," says Hodge, and more and more eligible providers and hospitals are planning to sign onto the incentive program. Statistics from CMS, ONC, CDC and more all "support the success of HITECH and the meaningful use program."

"Change isn't always obvious," writes Grunwald in The New New Deal. "But the stimulus-funded revolution in health IT is hard to miss. We all go to the doctor, and soon just about all our doctors will use electronic health records."

The numbers don't lie. "In 2008, just 17 percent of physicians and 12 percent of hospitals used digital records; it's now 34 percent of physicians and 40 percent of hospitals," he writes. "[A]according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, health IT is becoming America's fastest-growing occupation."

For all the faults one could find with a $27 billion federal program, most people would call that money well spent.