Readers Write (Dec. 19): Adele ticket availability, Timberwolves tickets, universal health care, Donald Trump

Tickets for Adele's July concerts at Xcel Energy Center sold out in minutes Thursday, and, inevitably, there was widespread griping by fans who got shut out. As usual, resellers (aka scalpers) received the brunt of the criticism, despite in reality obtaining only a tiny fraction of available inventory.

Xcel had only about 30,000 tickets to sell between the two shows. Tens of thousands more people than that wanted to buy tickets. If you are looking for the true culprits responsible for you missing the show, look no further than your fellow fans. If they didn't like Adele so darn much — just as you do — it would have been easier to get tickets.

You could also blame Adele and her management for not booking enough shows to satisfy demand. Garth Brooks played 11 concerts (including two shows some nights) in Minneapolis last year to ensure that everyone who wanted to see him had the opportunity. Perhaps the incredibly popular Adele could take a page from his playbook.

As a loyal Minnesota Timberwolves season-ticket holder for 10-plus years, I read the Dec. 17 commentary "Bah, humbug! to Wolves' new ticket policy" and felt the desire to reply with my experience. I was very much opposed to the concept of Flash Seats when I first learned of it. The whole idea of not having an actual ticket seemed silly to me. I voiced my frustrations to Wolves management, who invited me to their offices to run through the whole Flash Seats process and answer every question and scenario I had. Over the past couple of months, due to the education that the organization offered and to using Flash Seats when entering a game or transferring my seats to someone else, I have changed my tune. I'm now a firm believer in the whole process.

The ease of using a form of identification as a point of entry — much like everyone needs to do at airport security — is very convenient. And, speaking of security, I know that with this program it is impossible to produce a duplicate form of my tickets that can be sold by a scam artist. This system solves all of those issues.

The example of wanting to give tickets to a 12-year-old sounds cute on the surface, too, but how does the 12-year-old get to the game? I'm assuming an adult (with an ID of some sort) accompanies that 12-year-old, right?

Also, the writer says, "now I can only share with tech-savvy people who have credit cards and smartphones." This is false. I use my driver's license as a point of entry on some nights.

The Wolves seem to have their consumers in mind more than most people had assumed originally. The tickets are secure, easy to transfer and convenient.

None of this is meant to dispute that change is hard. Change is never easy. I was skeptical and resistant at first. But if you step back and think about it, there are still many ways you can make sure your paperboy, barber or anyone else receives your gifted tickets.

Regarding "Enrollment experience confirms that system is not sustainable" (Readers Write, Dec. 16), the letter writer makes these points:

• Inadequate enrollment results confirm that the system is not sustainable.

• Those with average or above income receive no subsidies.

• Those without subsidies have and will experience unprecedented premium increases.

• "We all know that the only way to gain control over this runaway train is … universal health care … ."

How would universal health have any effect on the total cost to society under Obamacare? It won't — probably the contrary! I've always supported reform of the health care payment system, and it was obvious from the start that the Affordable Care Act would be a huge mistake.

Changes could have been made to our former system that would have provided important improvements, but that would exploit a true marketplace and enjoy the efficiency of having very little bureaucracy. Here's a summary:

• Legislatively guaranteed insurability — left up to the marketplace to price the products — a straightforward high-risk pool would be employed.

• Insurance companies would underwrite only major medical and catastrophic coverage.

• Routine, first-dollar coverage would be accomplished through health savings accounts (HSAs).

• The desired relationship between personal income and health care costs would be achieved through the tax system. Deductibility of major medical coverage and HSA costs would vary based on income, ranging from partly deductible to refundable tax credits.

• Individuals or families would own the policies, thereby guaranteeing portability, and would individually make spending decisions.

Let's hope we have a chance to institute the right kind of health care reform!

Good grief! Don't the liberal and progressive writers of many of your letters understand or recognize the ridiculous irony and hypocrisy expressed in their thoughts? One writer encapsulated it perfectly when he wrote about "Donald Trump's vile, racist, bellicose hate-mongering" (Readers Write, Dec. 18). Not a lot of love there. Then he ends by saying it's time to "take a stand against the hate that is beginning to pervade our great nation." And the writer doesn't get it.

I'm sorry — Trump has been a fixture in American culture for a few decades, demonstrating his business acumen, his flamboyance, and his amazing ability to succeed, acquire great wealth, and provide good and decent jobs for many, many thousands of people. They include Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, black people, white people, Asian people, Latinos and all the mixtures in between. People working for his companies include Democrats, Republicans, independents, conservatives, liberals and all those mixtures, too. He is respected by his employees and respected by his business associates. We should all have contributed as much good to America as Trump has.

Over the years, I have read many, many letters by liberals and progressives expressing varying degrees of hatred for conservatives, conservative values and conservative politicians. Never once have I read any letter from the conservative side that contained the stridency, hatred and viciousness evident in the letters written by liberals and progressives toward opposing views and people.

Progressives: The next time you write, expressing hatred toward the people you think are hatemongers, look in the mirror and think about it.

I disagree with the Bernie Sanders supporter who said Sanders does not deserve to be in the same sentence with Trump and Carson (Readers Write, Dec. 14). Trump's appeal, like Sanders', is to an electorate that has been thrown under the bus by our post-Reagan economic system. I had a co-worker who was a Trump supporter. He was barely staying afloat, couldn't afford his health care and couldn't help his son go to college. This system has dashed his dreams for himself and his son. I introduced to him some of Sanders' policies (raising the minimum wage and government-paid college tuition). After some thought, he agreed that he is for that. Trump offered him targets for his outrage. Sanders offers him what can make his life better. Most people, if given a chance, will choose the more positive approach. So please, let's talk about the two in the same sentence.