It’s called free enterprise.

Grocery stores should be allowed to ask employees to help bear the rising cost of health care; and if they don’t like it, they can quit.

Pharmaceutical prices are going up. And those who thought the cost of health insurance was going to stay the same are fooling themselves.

The grocery clerk strike is childish. Employees everywhere are having to help absorb the cost of health care.

Even college students are paying more for their health care, that is, the 25 percent to 30 percent that even have health coverage. Some of them who don’t work full-time are paying $200 a month on top of class fees and living expenses. But you don’t see them on strike.

At least grocery store employees have a choice of where to work. They can quit their jobs at Ralphs, Vons or Albertson’s. Students aren’t going to quit school.

“Every place you look, businesses are seeing double-digit increases in the cost of health care, and are having to be more selective about what they can offer their employees,” said Jack Kyser of the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation in a recent advertisement put out by the three grocery chains.

Instead of striking with the union, why don’t these clerks take action against the rising cost of health care? After all, they aren’t the only ones feeling the pharmaceutical heat. Ask any senior citizen how much prescriptions cost.

When health care costs go up, so do employees’ cost of health care coverage. The unions know this.

This is a free country, and employers have the right to run their businesses the way they want. If the employees don’t like it, they can quit. That’s why this is America.