This morning on my way to work I turned on Newstalk ZB to find that Madeleine and her recent ACC victory were the topic of Leighton Smith’s morning show – Kerre McIvor was filling in. Madeleine ended up speaking to Kerre on air – you can listen here:
Or download here:
NewstalkZB have also reported on the case:
“An Auckland lawyer has won her own legal battle against the Accident Compensation Corporation.
Madeleine Flannagan has been fighting to get ACC to overturn its decision to stop her entitlements.
ACC claimed her injury-related pain was due to a degenerative condition.
Ms Flannagan says the decision was based solely on a diagnosis made by its own specialist.
“Every doctor and specialist who’d seen me at that point and subsequently, had said it was an accident.”
ACC overturned its decision just in time to avoid being taken to the District Court.
It claims the “consistency and rationale of two independent specialists’ opinion” is more compelling than that of its own specialist.
However, Ms Flannagan has her doubts over ACC’s true motives.
“They settled about two weeks after they were served my appeal papers so I am very sceptical that it was the compelling nature of my specialist’s report.” [which they’d received copies of from Madeleine’s lawyers 1-2 years prior to offering to settle]
Tags: ACC · Car Accident · Disc Replacement Surgery · Newstalk ZB24 Comments
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Sounds like you were dealt a bad deal – but to say that ACC has some sort of agenda based on this experience sounds a bit like a conspiracy theory IMHO.
The claim Brutus and various senators plotted to kill Julius ceaser on the ides of march is a conspiracy theory, as is the claim Philip of Macedon and his son Alexander planned with there generals to invade Persia.
“The claim Brutus and various senators plotted to kill Julius ceaser on the ides of march is a conspiracy theory, as is the claim Philip of Macedon and his son Alexander planned with there generals to invade Persia.”
Right… so THEREFORE any crackpot theory you come up with is ALSO true… thought you like logic?
I am not saying you were not dealt a bad deal Madelaine, or that the doctor did not get it wrong. That is right and fine… extrapolating from this to saying that ACC has a policy to do this (rather than just seeing it as a bad event) is unwarranted… and probably libel.
… extrapolating from this to saying that ACC has a policy to do this (rather than just seeing it as a bad event) is unwarranted… and probably libel.
Hark!, the voice of ignorance calls.
Other people have had the same experience, dealing with the same doctor. If you actually took the time to read the related posts, you’d know that. but I guess it’s just easier to be a smart-arse.
So prove it in court rather than just making insinuations onlinr. The good doctor probably saw thousands of people. Of course some will be unhappy. I am sure that is true of ANY doctor with th right cherry picking and witch hunting. He was doing his job and he end result was good. End of story. Let it go.
I dont recall saying this try reading what I wrote instead of making stuff up.
Also its a matter of public record already that this sort of thing occurs and its already esthablished that the doctor in question is involved in it: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10720485
Its called reduction ad absurdum matt… (google it)
You IMPLIES this.
I said it was a conspiracy theory… you said: look.. here are some conspiracy theories which turned out to be false”… was there not meant to be an implication of this? Were you simply presenting some history randomly? Stop being dishonest.
As for your link… so a doctor has made two bad calls… does this establish a pattern? or a scapegoat?
I think you mean a Reductio ad absurdum.
Actually, I pointed to some conspiracy theories that were true not ones that happened to be false. Its not false that Brutus and various senators conspired to kill ceaser, nor is it false that Philip and Alexander conspired to invade Persia)
As to what this implies, it implies that the fact something is a conspiracy theory does not mean its false or irrational. That conclusion is not the same as the conclusion that “any crackpot theory you come up with is ALSO true” which is what you attribute to me above.
Your welcome to demonstrate how claiming, not conspiracy theories are not always false, entails, that any crack pot theory is true.
The point is you can’t dismiss something simply by calling it a conspiracy theories, some claims to the existence of a conspiracy are true some are false. To tell which is which you need to examine the evidence, which is what you did not do.
I really wish people would read the facts of the situation that took place, rather than getting drunk on idle speculation. In either case, justice was served :)!
“I think you mean a Reductio ad absurdum.”
If I were you, Matt, I would not start correcting other people’s spelling mistakes… you are one of the worst spellers I have come across on a blog… just saying 😉
“As to what this implies, it implies that the fact something is a conspiracy theory does not mean its false or irrational.”
Yes… but it also does not imply that it is true and rational which is what you were really driving at (whether you are willing to admit it or not… and I doubt you will…)
But lets concentrate on this particular conspiracy theory.
Is the claim that the ACC hired this doctor and told him to say that peoples condition was degenerative? Or did they just notice that Otto tended to favor this diagnosis and so they started to use him more and more. In version one of the conspiracy theory Otto is a conspirator who (for whatever devious reason) wanted to destroy peoples lives. In the second version of the conspiracy theory Otto is an unwitting participant in someone else’s evil scheme (and perhaps a victim himself)
Can you clarify which of these claims is being made.
Having done a little research it turns out that ACC accepts 97% of cases with no dispute. So any conspiracy theory about them having a policy of denial is doubtful.
In any organization of this size there will always be false positives (people getting ACC who should not) and false negatives (people being denied when they should not be).
It looks like the number in each category is very small so making out that this is some huge conspiracy, rather than just an inevitable feature of any big organization, is dishonest.
Your strawmen demonstrate that you either have not read the issues or that you just cannot follow them. Either way it is not a good look.
Clue: the issue is ACC’s exit methods for people needing long term cover. I have not raised the issue of entrance to cover.
Calling something a strawman is not an instant knockdown argument you know… that term has a specific meaning.
The point is anecdotal evidence and a few newspaper articles does NOT establish a pattern in an organisation which deals with thousands upon thousands of people on a daily basis. Of course some mistakes will be made. Of course there will be some doctors who make bad calls. I don’t deny that.
It is when you make the extraordinary claim that it is ACC policy to make these mistakes in a systematic way that you need some real data to back it up.
CLUE: sending a link to a newspaper article about someone who also had a bad experience is not data.
It is a reasonably serious accusation to make about an organization.
Is what you are saying the following?
Are you saying is that the decision makers in ACC have got together and made a conscious decision to select people who they know are in need of long term care, and send them to doctors they have instructed to lie on their behalf, so that they can make that person live a life of poverty. And they have convinced the case workers to go along with this plan to lie on a massive scale in order to cause suffering?
This is an extraordinary claim… and the fact that YOU personally had a bad experience is not enough evidence to back up this claim. I am sure when you have lived through it it feels like it is – but you need to step back, try to see it from a distance, and realize that you are starting to sound like a conspiracy theorist.
It is like moonlanding deniers… once you start to think about the number of people who were involved in the organisation, and the number of people on all levels who would need to keep quite about what they know, it becomes unbelievable. Why has there not been one single whistle blower in ACC who has seen this systematic policy and not liked it? Because – as with the moon landing – it is just a conspiracy theory.
Now I am sorry you had a bad experience, and as I said this must happen a lot with ANY organization of this size every now and then, but I think what you have done is rather than just see this as bad luck (which ACC was willing to sort out in the end) you have to create a narrative in which you are the heroine, and ACC is the villian… but this is not a Holywood film.. it is just messy reality.
“Having done a little research it turns out that ACC accepts 97% of cases with no dispute.”
Bigus, you’re not hitting the same issue here. How about you do a similar level of research (i.e. not much) on ACC cases referred to Otto?
Google is fairly easy to use, but this should get you started. You’re welcome. 🙂
“Bigus, you’re not hitting the same issue here. How about you do a similar level of research (i.e. not much) on ACC cases referred to Otto?”
Because I am not denying that Otto may have a bias towards giving a particular sort of diagnosis (although a google search for some anecdotal evidence would not prove even this). But lets say I accept that Otto tends to err on the side of pre-existing when there is some grey area.
What exactly is the conspiracy theory from then on? Are ACC actually telling him to make this call? OR did they notice he tended to err this way and so use him more and more? OR is he just one of many doctors, and just a symptom of the sort of variation you get in a large system?
I have not had an answer yet to whether the conspiracy theorists think that ACC told Otto these were the results they wanted. Is this what is being claimed? If so who was issuing this instruction? Did it come from the top?
Throwing around insinuations is one thing… actually spelling it out is another.
“What exactly is the conspiracy theory from then on?”
Well, how about you start with the part where a conspiracy was claimed and spell out what that theory was.
Its not up to me to read people’s minds. It is a simple question. Are the authors of this blog claiming that ACC actually instructed someone to lie? Or are they just saying that there was one bad-egg among the doctors they use… its a simple question which has not received an answer.
Why Glen expects me to produce what the bloggers theory is is beyond me.
[EDIT: Pick one handle and stick to it and ensure it is not profane or we will pick one for you]
124.197.60.209 what we contend is in the affidavit evidence provided and in the posts we have written. Your welcome to read it, if you are actually interested in what we have actually said.
By the wat… why do you consider a Monty Python reference to be “profane”… what exactly is “profane” in your theology?
And why are you so unwilling to answer some direct questions?
I repeat:
“Are the authors of this blog claiming that ACC actually instructed someone to lie? ”
A failure to answer will tell us a lot in any case.
Is this “profane”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2K8_jgiNqUc
Is lying profane?
It does sound though bloggers are accusing ACC of some kind of criminal activity. But by.insituation.. too scares to say what they think
Still waiting for that direct answer. But I do not expect one. They know that if they answer “no” then they lose all credibility and it becomes clear that there is massive hypocrisy going on here. If they answer “yes” they know that they have no evidence that there is any such policy in ACC and so such claims are legally risky. By ignoring this direct question they can keep insituating that there is some sort of conspiracy going on without having to back up and assertions… pretty slimy way to act.