President Barack Obama has defended his plans for health reform in a news conference broadcast live in the US.

In opening remarks, Mr Obama pledged to push through a reform by the end of the year that would reduce costs, increase choice and ensure coverage.

Congress is currently debating various reform proposals, and lawmakers are struggling to reach agreement.

Mr Obama said he now saw "broad agreement" on passing a reform, but a few issues still needed working out.

The president has made passing a healthcare reform bill the top priority of his first year in the White House.

In the past 10 days, he has embarked on an aggressive push to promote his healthcare plans, as members of Congress argue over the details of reform.

'Not a game'

In his opening remarks at Wednesday's press conference, the president said Americans were looking to Congress for leadership.

"This debate is not a game," he said. "This isn't about me - I have great health insurance and so does every member of Congress."

Rather he said, it was about ordinary Americans who had been forced to "shoulder the burden of a problem that Washington has failed to solve for decades."

"We will pass reform that lowers cost, promotes choice and provides coverage that every American can count on," he said.

"And we will do it this year."

"I'm rushed because I get letters every day from families that are being clobbered by health care costs, and they ask me can you help," Mr Obama said.

The president said he would not rule out any ideas proposed in Congress, except any proposal that "primarily funded through taxing middle class families."

He also said reshaping America's healthcare system was crucial to helping the broader economy, and that any reform would reduce rather than add to the US deficit.

Talking about the general economy, Mr Obama said the US had been "on the verge of a complete financial meltdown", but there was now "stabilisation".

"We've stepped away from the brink," he said, adding that "things would be even worse" without the government's financial bailout package.

Timetable risk

Five congressional committees are currently working on bills, and although there is consensus on some aspects of reform, lawmakers are divided on whether to set up a public health insurance scheme for Americans without employer-sponsored coverage.

There is also much disagreement about how to raise revenue to fund the proposed expansion of healthcare coverage.

Some 47 million Americans do not currently have health insurance, and rising healthcare costs are a major contributing factor to America's spiralling budget deficit.

Mr Obama has called both chambers of Congress to pass healthcare reform bills by the end of the first week in August, so that he will be in a position to sign a final, combined, bill in October.

One Senate committee has passed a bill, and three House of Representatives committees have published a joint proposal.

Both of these bills would require all Americans to take out health insurance, and would provided subsidies to help make coverage affordable.

They would also give Americans without employer-provided coverage the option to join a public insurance scheme.

But the powerful Senate Finance Committee has yet to complete its version of the bill, amid calls from prominent moderate senators for a delay while a bipartisan compromise is reached.

The speaker of the House of Representatives, Democrat Nancy Pelosi, said on Wednesday that her party had the votes needed to pass the reform there.

"It will take some time," she said. "But we are going to do it right."

But House Republican Leader John Boehner called on Mr Obama to scrap the bill and start again "in a bipartisan way".

"If they try to fix our healthcare system like they've tried to rescue our economy, I think we're in really, really big trouble," he said.

If Mr Obama's timetable begins to slip, correspondents say the president's push for healthcare reform could be in jeopardy.