TOPEKA ? A review of Medicaid expenses, restricting courts and whether to allow gay people to adopt are among the issues that lawmakers will study over the next few months.

The topics were among a long list of policy issues approved by legislative leaders for review by various committees prior to the January startup of the 2006 legislative session.

A special committee will review Medicaid with the goal of increasing cost effectiveness.

“It’s sort of a runaway train,” Senate President Steve Morris, R-Hugoton, said of increasing expenses for the health care program that provides services to the poor and elderly.

Another committee will review a proposed constitutional amendment that would specify that courts cannot tell the Legislature how to appropriate funds. The proposal arose after a recent decision by the Kansas Supreme Court that required lawmakers to increase school funding.

On the adoption issue, a House-Senate committee on children’s issues will “review existing policies and procedures for eligible individuals to adopt children.”

The subject was requested by state Rep. Steve Huebert, a conservative Republican from Valley Center. He said he requested the study on behalf of a constituent who was concerned that a lesbian couple might be allowed to adopt her granddaughter, who was in foster care.

Under Kansas law, homosexual adults are neither restricted nor prohibited from adopting children.

Morris, and House Speaker Doug Mays, R-Topeka, said the language of the adoption study request was broad and not specifically aimed at gays.

When asked whether gays should be allowed to adopt, Mays, said, “I don’t know.” Morris said, “I really haven’t thought about it.”