Obama tells C-SPAN in an interview airing Saturday that he’s “absolutely committed” to keeping the process moving forward — to find ways to cut costs, increase efficiency and make sure families can get health care coverage without bankrupting them. Obama says changing the health care system will cost a lot of money upfront — but in the long run end up saving lots of money.

President Barack Obama says it’s going to be very difficult to push a major health care overhaul through Congress. But the president says he really thinks “the stars may be aligned” and that a deal can get done if everyone involved works in a spirit of compromise, rather than rigid ideology.

Obama tells C-SPAN in an interview airing Saturday that he’s “absolutely committed” to keeping the process moving forward — to find ways to cut costs, increase efficiency and make sure families can get health care coverage without bankrupting them.

The number of people who said they thought the United States was headed in the right direction jumped from 15 percent during the final days of Republican President George W. Bush’s administration in mid-January, before the inauguration, to 39 percent till date.The number of respondents who said the country was headed in the wrong direction dropped to 53 percent from 79 percent.

Thirty-four percent said the economy, already contracting, was getting worse, down from 54 percent just before Obama took office.According to the poll, 20 percent of Americans now think the economy is getting better, compared with 7 percent in mid-January.