The passage of the controversial law caught many by surprise and the opinions of representatives from Bay County are a mixed bag.

While some say the new legislation will be good because it will help many Americans get health insurance, others say that ultimately, it tampers with the relationship between the patient and the physician.

"I think the biggest implication for doctors is they're no longer working for their patients," says Neal Dunn, M.D. of the Bays Medical Society. "They're working for something else, another entity, in this case the government."

However, Bay Medical Center President and CEO Steve Johnson believes the positives outweigh the negatives in this case. "My intuitive sense tells me that it can't be anything but a positive for the community. When you talk about the Affordable Care Act, we're talking about the potential of 32 million Americans having health insurance, 2 million in the state of Florida, so that's a huge deal. This is landmark legislation."

Officials say that residents of Bay County won't feel the effects of the legislation any time soon though. There are too many loose ends that still need to be tied.