When insurance twice refused to cover a nearly $800,000-a-year drug that Paxton Pope’s doctor believed could dramatically reduce his frequent seizures, his family initially braced for a serious medical setback.

Then the Popes, of Davidson, North Carolina, learned about a little-known provision in the Affordable Care Act that allows asking an outside state-run panel to review the insurer’s decision — a move that led to the denial ultimately being overturned.

In the few months since then, access to the drug has already transformed the 13-year-old’s life, according to his mother, Maggie Pope. Paxton went from as many as 12 seizures an hour to about eight a day, she said, and he’s regaining skills he had started to lose, like holding conversations and telling them what he’s reading in scho

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