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It depends on the state. Most states are actually using the federal system. Some states did their own. For those, most were outsourced to contractors, as the business rules are extremely complex and state governments tend to not have much experience with high-volume consumer transactional websites.

A lot of the projects were handicapped by short schedules, due to political interference. They weren't really free to work full strength until after the 2012 election was done.

It could just be that they are not prepared for the amount of traffic they are getting, for part of the morning the New York website had a warning that they were getting a lot of traffic and to try again later in the day if you are unable to apply.

Worked yesterday. They are probably getting slammed today.

In every case I know of, contractors.