Rand Paul is proposing that states should pay half of Medicaid and SNAP costs rather than the current federal-dominant split, arguing this would incentivize stronger fraud prevention. The underlying logic — that misaligned incentives drive fraud — is intuitive, though experts contest whether evidence actually shows this is a major cause of fraud in these programs. There's another practical problem: states struggling to meet new federal payment error rate requirements are already redirecting fraud-prevention staff to administrative compliance work, meaning additional financial pressure could stretch them thinner without reducing fraud. It's also worth noting that states already shoulder substantial costs for Medicaid, so a shift to 50-50 funding would represent a significant change to an existing shared-cost structure.