President Barack Obama gestures at the Blair House in Washington during a meeting with Republican and Democratic congressional leaders last week to discuss health-care reform. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/Associated Press)

U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday urged Congress to pass a revised version of his health-care legislation that includes a number of Republican proposals.

In a speech delivered in the White House on Wednesday, Obama called on lawmakers to finish their work on health care, saying the country "is waiting for us to act."

"This is where we've ended up," Obama said. "It's an approach that has been debated and changed and I believe improved over the last year."

Before an audience of health-care workers, including doctors and nurses, Obama urged the leaders in both the Senate and House of Representatives to schedule a vote in the next few weeks.

Obama roundly rejected calls from Republicans to draft new legislation from scratch

"I do not see how another year of negotiations would help. Moreover, the insurance companies aren't starting over. They are continuing to raise premiums and deny coverage as we speak. For us to start over now could simply lead to delay that could last for another decade or even more."

As with bills currently stalled before the House of Representatives and the Senate, the proposal is expected to require most Americans to carry health insurance coverage, and bar insurance companies from denying coverage to people with medical problems or charging them more.

It would not include a publicly run insurance plan, however, but would allow the government to cap health insurance premiums "if a rate increase is unreasonable and unjustified."

A version of the proposed legislation posted on the White House website on Monday says it will insure more than 31 million Americans who cannot afford health insurance and reduce the U.S. deficit over the next 10 years by $100 billion.

Obama's afternoon speech came a day after he sent letter to congressional leaders saying he was open to incorporating four Republican ideas into his proposal.

Republicans not expected to support bill

The proposals included expanding pilot programs that experiment with specialized health courts rather than jury trials for medical malpractice lawsuits, increasing aid to Medicaid providers, expanding the use of health savings accounts, and using investigators disguised as patients to uncover waste and fraud in Medicare and Medicaid.

Republicans in both the House and the Senate, however, remain unanimous in their opposition to the bill, and were not swayed by the possible inclusion of their proposals.

Republican Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn said "merely incorporating these ideas into the deeply flawed House and Senate bills will not bring us any closer to real reform."

While Democrats control both the House and the Senate, the two chambers have been unable to agree on health-care legislation.

The inclusion of Republican proposals is aimed at the some three dozen Democratic moderates who opposed an earlier version of the bill brought before the House of Representatives in November.

With files from The Associated Press