Ex-Day, as in the deadline for states to announce whether they'll be running their own health insurance exchanges under Obamacare or leaving it to the federal government, arrived on Friday. The final tally: 18 states will run their own exchanges, while 32 will either partner with the federal government or turn the task over to the federal government entirely.

Greg Sargent highlights the irony here:



It’s now official: In well over half of the states, local governments will relinquish all or some control over implementation of a law that will impact untold numbers of their own constituents. In so doing, they are reducing, rather than increasing, control over what happens in their own states—all in the name of states’ rights.

According to Sarah Kliff, federal exchanges might run a bit slower than state ones—if states choose to get involved in determining people's eligibility for services, for instance—but federal versus state control isn't that important as a policy question.

With the last of these decisions made, the bizarre spectacle of Republicans deciding how to posture over resisting a law that's already been passed and upheld should be over ... or at least move to a new phase.