WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama is trying to bring in congressional Republicans in efforts to develop a health care reform bill that can win approval in Congress, but it isn't clear how successful that effort will be.

Looking to renew momentum on the stalled health care reform legislation, President Obama said in a televised interview last week that he wants to discuss reform ideas with Republicans at a televised summit on Feb. 25.

“I want to consult closely with our Republican colleagues. What I want to do is to ask them to put their ideas back on the table,” the president said in the interview. “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's outreach to Republicans came several weeks after the political landscape in which health care reform legislation had been considered changed dramatically.

With the Jan. 19 election of Republican Scott Brown in Massachusetts to fill the seat of the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, Democrats lost their filibuster-proof majority in the Senate and their ability to pass a comprehensive bill without Republican support.

By reaching out to Republicans, President Obama is taking a needed step to revive the reform drive, observers say.

“He is trying to find a common ground,” said Helen Darling, president of the National Business Group on Health in Washington.

If the summit leads to a revamped bill that picks up support from just a couple of Senate Republicans, “that could be a real game changer,” said Frank McArdle, a consultant with Hewitt Associates Inc. in Washington.

Several key Republicans, while willing to participate in the summit, last week said they want the administration to drop its support of reform bills already passed by the House and the Senate as a condition of their attending the summit.

“The best way to start on real bipartisan reform would be to scrap those bills and focus on the kind of step-by-step improvements that will lower health care costs and expand access,” House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said in a statement.

So far, though, the White House has been unwilling to do that.