Yesterday was the first day that the health care reform law’s “high-risk pools,” set up by the federal government to cover people with pre-existing conditions, began accepting applications. But because states have the option of using the federal plan or setting up their own, only 21 states can take applications so far:

These 21 states have asked the federal government to run the high-risk pool rather than administer it themselves: Alabama, Arizona, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Wyoming.

Residents of these states can apply starting Thursday. Administration officials said people who apply by July 15 will begin receiving coverage by Aug. 1.

The remaining 29 states and the District of Columbia will run their own programs and begin accepting applications over the next several months.

“Asked,” of course, is a charitable description by the Los Angeles Times. No doubt some of these states – particularly those with Democratic-controlled legislatures and whose leadership actually care about the uninsured – weighed the options and decided that a federally-run high-risk pool is the better option for them. The federal pools are coming online quicker, most likely, because Federal officials have had the better part of two years to think about how to implement high-risk pools, and some states obviously saw value in having a plan that’s part of a national standard.

But other states didn’t “ask” the federal government to set up their high-risk pools any more than an infant throwing a dinner-time temper tantrum “asks” mommy or daddy to handle the spoon and sippy-cup. For Republican officials in those states, local control was far less important than throwing their tantrum and making a big show out of refusing to lift a finger for reform.

Mother Jones described the situation with a little bit more context at the beginning of May:

At least 15 states—all but three led by Republicans—have decided against creating insurance pools for Americans with pre-existing conditions, forcing the federal government to step in and establish the high-risk pools itself. By contrast, at least 28 states—all but seven led by Democrats—will help the federal government by creating the pools themselves. It’s the first major decision for states to make under the new law. And the Republican-led refusals are the latest sign that red states will be far less willing to play nice as health reform gets underway.

Ultimately, though, the L.A. Times got it right. Republicans may have thought they were making some grand statement against President Obama and against health care reform by refusing to cooperate in the high-risk pools, but all they were really doing is asking the federal government to make the decisions for them.

And they didn’t even succeed in slowing down reform in their states. If anything, they sped it up – which makes this Republican failure a WIN for those with preexisting conditions.