President Barack Obama has moved to salvage his embattled healthcare reforms with an unusual show of contrition over its “fumbled” rollout and a concession to allow millions of Americans to keep insurance plans.

After weeks on the defensive, Mr Obama said insurers could continue to offer certain plans that would have been cancelled next year under his Affordable Care Act. After years of planning, the administration, he said, needed to rethink how it could sell a product as complicated as insurance online to millions of people, many of whom were also seeking tax subsidies, in an easy way.

“There have been times where I thought we were, you know, slapped around a little bit unjustly. This one’s deserved, all right? It’s on us,” the US president said at the White House. “I said early on when I was running, I am not a perfect man and I will not be a perfect president.”