A day after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a key part of President Obama’s sweeping health care reform, small businesses in Suffolk were still trying to come to grips with the potential repercussions.

Where the initial reaction of those in the medical field had been generally positive, and that of politicians divided along party lines, the response from the small-business community around the nation has trended more negative.

In Suffolk, at least some owners of small businesses expressed pessimism on Friday about what the ruling would mean to them.

Hunter Odom Jr., executive vice president at Suffolk Insurance, said it still is unclear how businesses will be affected by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The company, which is itself a small business, provides health insurance for many small businesses in Suffolk.

“We don’t know the full impact of how it’s going to affect us as a health insurance agent,” Odom said. “We feel like it’s going to be negative, but we don’t know.”

Odom said the exchanges, which will be the avenues for purchasing individual health insurance plans for those who do not receive health insurance through their employers, have not been set up yet, and nobody is quite sure exactly how they will work.

“It’s going to be a daunting task,” Odom said. “We think the cost of health care is going to continue to rise because of it.”

National small business advocates expressed disappointment in the decision. Among them was the National Federation of Independent Business, which was among those entities challenging the constitutionality of the law’s individual mandate, which requires everyone to purchase health insurance or pay a fine.

“Under [the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act], small-business owners are going to face an onslaught of taxes and mandates, resulting in job loss and closed businesses,” Dan Danner, president and CEO of the National Federal of Independent Business, said in a press release.

Suffolk auto dealership owner Mike Duman said he believes the law will slow job creation.

“Business owners are going to be wary of additional government mandates with unknown costs,” Duman said. “If you’re not aware of what all your costs are going to be, it makes it very difficult to hire employees.”

The National Small Business Association said the costs of the law are a huge concern for small businesses.

“NSBA, while opting not to participate in the Supreme Court proceedings, ultimately opposed PPACA due to its failure to truly address health care costs and insurance premium prices,” a statement on its website said. “Health care costs are among the largest facing small businesses, and absent reforms to PPACA, will continue to grow at an unsustainable pace.”

Fourth-District Con-gressman J. Randy Forbes, a Republican, echoed those sentiments Thursday. “The President’s health care law increases costs for employers, leaving some small businesses with the choice between laying off employees or paying the penalty associated with failure to purchase health insurance,” he said in a statement released following the Supreme Court’s ruling.