OMAHA - Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Friday that Americans need a new government-sponsored insurance plan to guarantee choice and competition - especially in rural America.

"What the president feels is important is to have some competition and to have a choice," Sebelius said at a roundtable discussion in Omaha, where she delivered a sales pitch for President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.

Her appearance was part of an aggressive new administration push to build a groundswell of public support for action by Congress in time for Obama to sign legislation in the fall.

Obama himself brought the same message to heartland voters on Thursday during a town hall meeting in Green Bay, Wis.

Sebelius said there seems to be broad agreement that the nation's health care system is broken, but there's less agreement about what needs to be done to fix it.

The new public plan option - favored by Obama but opposed by Republicans - is just one potential piece of sweeping health care legislation taking shape in Congress, but it's proving a big stumbling block.

Sebelius said that in rural parts of the country - Nebraska's sparsely populated Sandhills, for example - a reasonably priced private plan may not be available. That's where a government-backed plan could play a key role, she said.

Republicans contend that a new government-sponsored insurance plan would drive private insurers out of business. Sebelius said the public plan wouldn't replace private insurance plans. Sebelius said the public plan would compete with private insurance plans but wouldn't replace them.

Sebelius told Nebraskans she met with that the health reform plan needs to be much broader than just addressing the problems with health insurance because the current system doesn't do a good job of preventing disease and managing Americans' health and wellness.

Obama is pressuring Congress to move quickly on legislation to accomplish his goals of taming spiraling health costs and extending coverage to 50 million Americans who lack it now.