A major component of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act – aka health-care reform – is the creation of state health insurance exchanges. Each state is supposed to have its own online marketplace where the public can shop for standardized health-care plans. Those exchanges are supposed to be up and running no later than next January.

That deadline is still months away, but each state had to announce its intention last fall as to whether it would create its own exchange. Missouri and Kansas both passed, which means their citizens will use a federally operated exchange instead.

“My administration will not partner with the federal government to create a state-federal partnership insurance exchange,” Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback said in a written statement, “because we will not benefit from it and implementing it could cost Kansas taxpayers millions of dollars.”

In Missouri, starting an exchange wasn’t even an option for Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon. Voters passed a measure that prohibits the governor from implementing an exchange without the approval of the legislature or voters.

Missouri and Kansas are among 25 states that will rely on federal-operated exchanges.