By Adriel Bettelheim, CQ Staff

President Obama on Wednesday again prodded Congress to finish work on a health care overhaul before the August recess as his administration edged closer to a strategy that could push the legislation through the Senate without Republican votes.

Appearing with representatives of the American Nurses Association at the White House, Obama praised a plan that the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee approved Wednesday by a party-line 13-10 vote. The president took pains to note that the bill contained more than 160 Republican amendments, calling it “a hopeful sign of bipartisan support for the final product.”

Obama was scheduled to meet later in the day with Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Saxby Chambliss of Georgia and Bob Corker of Tennessee in a bid to woo Republican support for an overhaul.

But privately, White House officials said the administration is moving closer to advancing the overhaul under a congressional procedure known as budget reconciliation that would make the bill immune to filibuster in the Senate.

While the administration still prefers to get a bill that commands some Republican support, its standard for a bipartisan agreement is a measure that contains GOP amendments — not something that will necessarily attract Republican votes.

The subtle but important shift reflects Obama’s eagerness to get House and Senate bills to a conference in September and sign a final bill into law by fall.

At the event with the nurses, Obama said, “We are going to be continually talking about this for the next two to three weeks until we’ve got a bill off the Senate and we’ve got a bill out of the House. Then we’ll deserve a few weeks’ rest before we come back and finally get a bill done so we can sign it right here in the Rose Garden.”

The Senate Finance Committee is preparing to unveil its version of an overhaul and mark it up, possibly as soon as next week. Chairman Max Baucus , D-Mont., has been working hard to get backing from at least a couple of committee Republicans.

House Democrats have introduced a health care bill that is due to be marked up by the Ways and Means Committee on Thursday. The Energy and Commerce and Education and Labor committees starting markups of the sections under their purview this week, as well.

One administration official said the White House is intent on protecting Republican provisions during any House-Senate conference, but won’t use roll call votes as the ultimate test of a measure’s bipartisan appeal.

The White House stance acknowledges the still-sharp partisan disagreements over the parameters of an overhaul. The HELP panel’s ranking Republican, Michael B. Enzi of Wyoming, on Wednesday criticized the plan for lacking budgetary offsets.

Sen. Orrin G. Hatch , R-Utah, said the bill would impose “a job-killing employer tax” as well as “create another government-run health care program and give Washington bureaucrats more power than ever before to dictate health care for families in Utah and across the nation.”

But at the White House event, American Nurses Association President Rebecca M. Patton endorsed Obama’s efforts and said her group supported any compromise containing a public plan that could compete with private health insurance.