EHR momentum to continue apace
It's going to be an exciting year on the campaign trail. Debate about the ACA "is really gonna stir the pot," Moore said, noting that the potential timing of the Supreme Court's healthcare decsision is "like whacking the hornet's nest."

By and large, however, he doesn't think "the effort to provide incentives for EHRs is going to be brought under much heavy scrutiny" on the campaign trail in 2012. "In the grand scheme of things, the money being spent on it is not that significant compared to other budgets."

And, of course, the potential ROI is enormous – presuming, that is, that the forthcoming stages 2 and 3 of the meaningful use program "can be done right."

And even should the GOP take the White House this November, it's unlikely that we'll see any significant threat to meaningful use funding, Moore said.

Mitt Romney, he points out, "is a bit of a technocrat. So I don't see him backing off HITECH. And if you look at New Gingrich, he's a bit of a technocrat as well. So if those are the two front runners –  both of them have, by Republican standards, fairly progressive healthcare stances on policy."

Roberts agrees. "I have not heard Gov. Romney or Speaker Gingrich say anything about this program," he said. "I've actually heard Speaker Gingrich speak positively about the value of Health IT. And I think Gov. Romney, from his experience in Massachusetts, with state healthcare reform, knows that you have to have data, and the only way to have data is to have electronic health information.”

In Congress, too, "you have doctors who are members of the House now, on both sides of the aisle, that get it." They see the HITECH Act as an "opportunity to get something in place to improve the quality of care for [their] constituents."

And, not to put too fine a point on it, but a lot of the money is already spent. More than $2 billion has been disbursed from the incentive funds, and a couple billion more has been spent on other projects such as Regional Extension Centers and HIEs.

"The train in many ways has already left the station," Moore said.

And it's all been worth it so far, Roberts added. "My challenge, day in and day out, is to continue to help educate people about the value of this program," he said. "I tell anyone who will listen: 'You'll probably never see a program like this in our lifetime again.'"

Follow Mike Miliard on Twitter: @MikeMiliardHITN. Bernie Monegain and Tom Sullivan contributed to this story. For more of our primaries coverage, visit Political Malpractice: Healthcare in the 2012 Election.