President Barack Obama said he is “absolutely committed” to U.S. health care reform.

Barack Obama

In an interview that aired on C-SPAN Saturday (May 23), the president said he expects challenges as he and Congress move toward reform. But he said people’s concerns about the spiraling cost of care will allow his Democratic administration to succeed where former President Bill Clinton’s efforts failed.

“The biggest change politically . . . is that businesses now recognize that if we don’t get a handle on this stuff that they are going to continue to be operating at a competitive disadvantage with other countries,” Obama said in the interview. “And so they anxiously seek serious reform.”

Several members of Congress are preparing major plans for health care reform, with the range of options including a public-insurance/private-insurance arrangement, universal health insurance provided through the government, and making substantial changes to the current private insurance system to enable it to provide coverage to more of the nation’s estimated 45.5 million uninsured people.