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The Department of Justice has asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit brought by Humana, which alleged the government’s new audits of Medicare Advantage plans are unlawful.

And if the lawsuit isn’t thrown out, the DOJ said in a new legal filing, at a minimum, it should be moved to a different federal court in Texas — away from a judge that has a track record of striking down federal health care laws.

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The DOJ’s main contention with Humana’s lawsuit is that Humana has not been hurt under the new Medicare Advantage audit regulations because those audits haven’t been rolled out yet, and won’t be for a while. But the Biden administration also insinuated in its official response that these new auditing rules are more vague and have less teeth than previously advertised.

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