People aren't just feeling the economic crunch in their pocketbooks. They are feeling it from head to toe—literally.

The Washington Post this week had a good story showing how even insured people, facing higher co-pays and deductibles than in the past, are delaying recommended or even necessary health care. The uninsured, of course, are cutting even more deeply, or racking up debt--for themselves, and sometimes even for their kids.

The number of people who have gone without a prescription, tapped into retirement savings to pay for health care or skipped a doctor visit for themselves or a child has risen since last year, according to a survey released this summer by the Rockefeller Foundation and Time magazine. They are cutting drug doses in half, delaying screening for cancer and other conditions, and trying home remedies. Some may eventually face more serious, and more expensive, conditions if they don't catch problems early.

Ann Pietrangelo, for instance, told the Post she was skipping her MRIs and avoiding going to the doctor as much as possible for her multiple sclerosis. Her MS drugs cost her $500 a month, and there is no generic alternative. And that's with insurance.

With the economy in trouble, it's likely to get worse.

"We know from past experience that an economic downturn drives more people to be uninsured," Len Nichols, New America's director of health policy, told the Post. "They lose their jobs, they lose their income and their insurance."

Jean Mitchell, a public policy professor at Georgetown University, said that health care used to be more or less recession-proof, "because most people were covered under good insurance plans." But now with cost shifting to employees, "People are realizing, Oh my gosh, I have to pay for this out of pocket."

No wonder that polls find that health reform has crept back into the campaign discourse, and onto the wish list of U.S. voters.