The Iowa Senate approved on a 30-18 party-line vote Thursday a sweeping health-care-reform bill that would extend health insurance to 30,000 uninsured children. But before debate was even over, House leaders said they intended to make dramatic changes to the bill to attract bipartisan support.

"It will look dissimilar from the Senate file," said House Minority Leader Paulsen. "The majority leader and I talked again about that very subject yesterday, and we're both committed to coming up with a strong, bipartisan bill that serves Iowans best."

Senate File 389 in its current form would extend health insurance to 30,000 currently uninsured children, and allow those working for small businesses and not-for-profits to be considered state employees to enroll in a state health or medical-group insurance plan.

"This will continue to leave us as the leader of the country in terms of the percentage of kids that have access to affordable health insurance coverage," said Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal (D-Council Bluffs). "Even if we have difficult, challenging times this year, we are not backing away from that commitment to help working-class families access health care coverage for children. We are very proud of that effort."

Controversial proposals to ban free prescription-drug samples and extend public health insurance to immigrant children who are in the country illegally have been removed from the bill.

This weekly summary comes from IowaPolitics.com, an online government and politics news service. IowaPolitics.com staff contributed to this report.

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