Washington - US President Barack Obama provoked a stormy reaction from some key members of his own party Monday after suggesting he may abandon a central plank of his health care overhaul in a bid to gain more bipartisan support for reform.

Obama over the weekend signalled he might accept legislation that did not include a public health insurance option, an idea considered essential to health reform by many left-leaning Democrats but rejected by nearly all opposition Republicans.

The public option, a government-administered insurance plan that would compete with private insurers, has long been a hot topic in the US health debate. Supporters believe it is the only way to bring down costs, while opponents fear it will crowd out the competition.

Howard Dean, a former Vermont governor and one-time presidential candidate, said there could be no meaningful overhaul of the country's costly health care system without creating a public plan.

"The public option is absolutely linked to reform," Dean, a doctor and leading health reform advocate, told US broadcaster CBS on Monday. He predicted the government option would still make it into a final bill.

Republicans have fiercely opposed the idea, likening more government involvement in providing health care to the single-payer systems or "socialized medicine" provided in Europe.

A bipartisan group of legislators in the Senate Finance Committee are currently working on a compromise that could create government- backed co-operatives in lieu of the public plan.

The United States has the costliest health system in the industrialized world, consuming about 16 per cent of economic output, while about 46 million people are uninsured. But legislators have been haggling for months over how best to rein in costs and extend coverage. Obama wants a reform bill approved by the end of this year.

At a townhall gathering in Colorado on Saturday, Obama said the public plan was just "one sliver" of the entire health care bill making its way through Congress.

The public option, whether we have it or we dont have it, is not the entirety of health care reform," Obama said.

Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius echoed those remarks Sunday, telling broadcaster CNN that the public plan was "not an essential element" of the reform effort.(dpa)