You are correct. Democrats thought that they could force republican governors into having a state exchange by making the subsidies contingent on having an exchange.
Not so fast.
The question now is whether the judicial branch is going allow the executive branch to change the statute without having to go back through congress...
Ironically (for Obama), many more states would have probably set up their own exchanges had the law not changed every six weeks at the whim of President Obama’s political calculations. In other words, he might have got the ‘hammer he desired by only allowing state exchanges to get subsidies’ had he not overwhelmed even friendly states with his illegal executive orders.
The larger picture is simple: Obama does not care about running the country. He cares only about winning the political argument of the moment. He succeeds at this pretty well (unfortunately), but the price of this success is to be a failure as a leader...which will ultimately be his true legacy.
In the mean time, he’s made an absolute mess out of the actual ACA law that was passed by congress and he’s adulterated the mechanisms of government that exist to make any changes to the law in a legal manner.
Oh what a tangled web we weave when we practice to deceive.