‘Princess Diana would’ve been alive in America’: Conservative speaker manages to offend both Brits & French in anti-medicare rant

A speaker at CPAC claimed the late Princess Diana died not because of her tragic car accident, but because France’s socialized medicine prevented her from getting proper medical care.

Conservative fears of socialized medicine – a policy that presidential hopefuls like Bernie Sanders have floated – hit fever pitch at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Thursday with a panel discussing how the late Princess Diana would have survived her 1997 car crash in Paris, France if she had been in America. 

“Socialized medicine killed Princess Diana,” an announcer for a panel on healthcare in the US announced before allowing speaker Dr David Schneider to go on a rant about the shortcomings of government-run healthcare.

“They actually don’t have any trauma specialists in France,” Schneider, an orthopedic surgeon, said, explaining the princess was taken to a hospital and died after three hours because doctors could not control “bleeding from her pulmonary artery.”

“There were no trauma-trained people there,” Schneider said. The doctor claimed that Diana, who died at the age of 36, would still be alive had her accident occurred in the US.

“I really believe, knowing what I know about her care and comparing it to what Congressman Scalise had, Princess Diana would have lived had that accident happened here in America,” he added, referring to Louisiana Representative Steve Scalise, who was shot in June of 2017 and underwent months of surgery and recovery before returning to Congress in September.

Princess of Wales Diana Frances Spencer died in 1997 after a car accident in a Paris tunnel. Plenty of conspiracy theories exist surrounding her death, and now “socialized medicine” can be added to that list.

While Republicans have often argued against socialized medicine being implemented in the US, capitalizing on Princess Diana’s death to try and instill fear of socialized healthcare was still a bit too far for many.

“Pretty sure it was a horrific car accident as a result of a high-speed paparazzi chase in a Paris tunnel [that killed her],” reporter Julia Manchester tweeted in reaction to video of the panel.

“Ignoring the plain truth, of course, that the patch-work American health care system is the best in the world if you can afford it,” commented another Twitter user.

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