News that Google Health died last week should come as little surprise. After all, the company is built upon a blatant disregard for protecting the privacy rights of their users.

Google’s plan was to get into the business of storing people’s health records and private medical information. In two words the project could be described as “Epic Fail.”

It goes without saying that protecting the privacy of one’s medical records is of utmost importance. Most Americans believe in the age-old tradition of a doctor patient privilege, which is why various states and the federal government have put into law numerous statutes to protect patients.

Google’s position on privacy, on the other hand, can best be summed up by the flippant comments of their former CEO Eric Schmidt who said, “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.”

Google can claim that it would have treated these records differently than the way they treat your Google searches, your Gmail’s and the way they track your every movement if you have an Android phone – and perhaps they would. But news that Chinese hackers were able to break their firewall to access Gmail accounts of hundreds of thousands of users – including high-ranking government officials – certainly didn’t help things.

The fact remains, that Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) remain the only proven methods of protecting your privacy, increasing consumer choice and reducing the cost of health care.