A coalition of health industry stakeholders, including some that scuttled Hillary Care in 1993, have offered to help save $2 trillion from projected increases in health spending over the next decade, according to White House officials.

The group includes the American Medical Association, the American Hospital Association, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, America’s Health Insurance Plans, and the Service Employees International Union.

“We are developing consensus proposals to reduce the rate of increase in future health and insurance costs through changes made in all sectors of the system,” the stakeholders wrote in a letter to the Big O that was obtained by the Washington Post.

“We are committed to taking action in private-public partnership to create a more stable and sustainable health care system.”

The groups want to meet with Obama before offering specifics.

Obama administration officials praised the offer as one that should enhance momentum for health care reform. Their goal is to have a bill passed by the end of this summer.

“As restructuring takes hold and the population’s health improves over the coming decade, we will do our part to achieve your administration’s goal of decreasing by 1.5 percentage points the annual health care spending growth rate,” the groups wrote.

Projections are that after just 5 years, the proposal would save a family of four $2,500 per year in health-care costs. Within a decade, the savings would “virtually eliminate” the nation’s budget deficit.

Of course this is all happy talk until the groups specify how they will achieve their cost reduction targets and how the required behavior will be monitored and enforced.

That is not going to be a walk in the park.

Still, it’s a good day for the health reform movement. Poll after poll after all has shown that while Americans care deeply about the number of uninsured citizens, their top complaint by far is the rising cost of care.

A computer hacker claims to have stolen 8 million records worth of patients’ personal and prescription drug information from a Virginia government Web site.

The hacker replaced the site with a ransom note demanding $10 million in exchange for safe return of the files.

The Web site belongs to the Virginia Prescription Monitoring Program, which tracks prescription drug abuse.

It contains 35 million prescriptions and personal information from enrollees including names, addresses and social security numbers.

The demand placed on the supposedly secure site was as follows:

“Attention Virginia! I have your [expletive]! In *my* possession, right now, are 8,257,378 patient records and a total of 35,548,087 prescriptions. Also, I made an encrypted backup and deleted the original. Unfortunately for Virginia, their backups seem to have gone missing, too. Uhoh For $10 million, I will gladly send along the password.”

The hacker thoughtfully provided his email address, which is “hackingforprofit@yahoo.com.”

“This was an intentional criminal act against the commonwealth by somebody who was trying to harm others,” Governor Timothy Kaine told the Washington Post.

The Virginia Department of Health Professions is responsible for the hacked site. Its director, Sandra Whitley Ryals has called in the FBI. Apparently the Department has back-ups of the violated database.

“This is a lesson for all health systems,” Deborah Peel, the founder of Patient Privacy Rights told HealthcareITnews. ”Providence hospital system spent $8-9 million fending off lawsuits for a breach; you have to prove you can be trusted.”

The hacker threatened to sell the data by last Thursday if they were not paid off. The deadline has passed and there is no sign they followed through.

State officials have raised questions as to whether the hacker can view the records, as he or she has claimed.