WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama says he wants to convene a half-day, televised bipartisan session at the White House later this month in an attempt to break the political stalemate on health care reform legislation.

“I want to come back and have a large meeting, Republicans and Democrats, to go through systematically all the best ideas that are out there and move it forward,” President Obama said in a televised interview Sunday prior to the Super Bowl.

In calling for Republicans to attend the Feb. 25 meeting, the president said he had several questions for Republicans who have united against bills passed by the U.S. House and Senate.

“How do you guys want to lower costs? How do you guys intend to reform the insurance market so that people with pre-existing conditions, for example, can get health care?” he asked. “How do you want to make sure that the 30 million people who don’t have health insurance can get it? What are your ideas specifically?”

Republican congressional leaders said they welcomed a bipartisan meeting, but suggested that the administration shelve measures approved last year by Congress.

“There are a number of issues with bipartisan support that we can start with when the 2,700-page bill is put on the shelf,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., in a statement.

The drive to pass health care reform legislation, which began shortly after President Obama took office a year ago, hit a roadblock when Democrats last month lost their filibuster-proof majority in the Senate following the election in Massachusetts of Republican Scott Brown to fill the seat held by the late Sen. Edward Kennedy. The election ended Democrats’ ability to win final passage of comprehensive reform without Republican support.

President Obama’s overtures to Republicans recognize that changed political landscape, observers say.

Earlier congressional health care reform efforts—including 1996 legislation to curb pre-existing medical condition exclusions in group health care plans and 1997 legislation to set up state health insurance programs for uninsured lower-income children—were bipartisan.