Obama offers plan to revive push for US healthcare

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama made a last-ditch bid to revive his stalled US healthcare overhaul late on Monday with a plan to make insurance more affordable and to bolster government authority to regulate premium hikes.

Obama will push the proposal at a bipartisan healthcare summit tomorrow in an uphill effort to break an impasse in the US Congress, but the White House signaled it was ready to proceed without Republicans if needed to pass a reform bill.

The proposal and summit came as Obama tried to rally support for a sweeping healthcare overhaul that would restrain costs, tighten regulations on insurers and expand health coverage to tens of millions of Americans.