A little more than a week after Mitt Romney lost his bid for the presidency, the prominent Republican tapped to head his transition is encouraging states to implement the Affordable Care Act, a law which Romney had pledged to eliminate on “day one” during the 2012 campaign.

Former Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt — who also served as Health and Human Services Secretary under President George W. Bush — had been helping states establish the law’s exchanges through his firm Leavitt Partners before being tapped for the high-profile transition job. And now, as Republican governors decide how to move forward with the law in the face of a second Obama term, Leavitt is “working to get states to create their own exchanges” — the new marketplaces that will connect consumers with insurance coverage by 2014. States have the option of establishing and administrating their own systems or outsourcing the task to the federal government.

The former Utah governor’s outfit, Leavitt Partners, argues that it will be a “bureaucratic nightmare” for states to deal with the federal government if they don’t have their own exchanges, that states would be giving up the power to design their own uniquely tailored systems if they default to the feds, and that they risk losing regulatory authority over insurers that operate in their states under the auspices of the federally designed exchange.

As of Friday, 19 states had indicated they would let the feds run their exchanges, 11 are still undecided, while 20 states and the District of Columbia “had announced they would set up exchanges partially or fully run by their states.”

Leavitt Partners is heavily invested in the law’s state-based exchanges and “has been advising companies and state legislatures on how to create exchanges.” The group hired former government officials who helped build the Utah exchange soon after the federal health law passed and its websites brags about its abilities to help clients implement the measure.

Republican governors are delaying efforts to implement the Affordable Care Act in hope that Mitt Romney will win the presidency in November and move to undo the law. Yet a top adviser to the former Massachusetts governor and the man tapped to head a potential Romney transition is still advising states to establish Obamacare’s central component: health care exchanges.

Former Utah governor and Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt (R) is head of consulting firm Leavitt Partners, which is heavily invested in the law’s state-based exchanges and advises states on how to establish the new insurance marketplaces. “I understand why some of my fellow conservatives oppose the formation of insurance exchanges,” Leavitt maintained to the New York Times, despite the growing concern among Republicans of the rift between Romney’s pledge to repeal the health law and his adviser’s business arraignments. “Continued inaction by states risks an Obama-style federal exchange being foisted upon a state,” Leavitt warned. Under the law, states that fail to implement the exchanges, turn them over to the federal government.

A press release on the Leavitt Partners website advertises the firm’s “policy expertise and information system and process expertise as it relates to all of the detailed components of setting up an exchange.” “We offer clients our knowledge of the requirements of the Affordable Care Act and the technical know-how to create a successful health insurance exchange,” the company says.

Indeed, the Times reports that the firm consults with many outside experts, “several who served in the Obama administration. They include Dr. David Blumenthal, the former coordinator of health information technology for the federal government, and Joel S. Ario, former director of the federal office for insurance exchanges.”

Leavitt has also “chided those who were delaying action in the hope that the health care law would be repealed. It is better, he said, to have an exchange established ‘at the state level, in a way that matches the views, aspirations and needs of a state, than to have it done in Washington.’”