The law has had an impact on businesses. Engineering firm Clough, Harbour & Associates (CHA), Albany, N.Y., has been planning and preparing for changes since the health-care bill was enacted in 2010, says Megan Robertson, manager of benefits, compensation and human-resources administration.

Robertson adds that, for employers, the law results in potential cost increases as well as additional effort to comply “with perhaps minimal benefit to doing so.”

Uncertainty over how the Supreme Court would rule is believed to have affected some companies' plans at least since last November, when the court announced it would hear the health-care case.

Now, even after the release of the court's decision, CHA's Robertson says, "From an employer’s perspective, there's still uncertainty, but there would have been uncertainty over what truly was going to be implemented even if the law wasn’t upheld."