HealthQuotes Protect
Not everyone who needs health care can buy a plan today. This section is for the people comparison sites usually skip — older adults, households on low incomes, people without stable housing, and anyone whose medical identity has been stolen. Everything listed here is free or low-cost, and none of it requires buying anything from us.
4 topics
Fraud & identity protection
Spotting stolen medical identity, correcting a contaminated record, and reporting scams.
Read the full fraud & identity protection guideMedical identity theft: how to spot it, stop it and fix your records
Medical identity theft can corrupt your medical record as well as your credit. How to read an Explanation of Benefits for fraud, freeze the damage, report it, and correct records that now hold someone else's blood type or allergies.
Free & low-cost care
Where to get treated when you have no plan, no money, or a bill you cannot pay.
Read the full free & low-cost care guideFree and low-cost health care: what you can get without insurance
Community health centers, sliding-scale fees, hospital charity care, Medicaid and CHIP, prescription assistance and free helplines. The routes to care that do not depend on being able to afford a premium.
Help for older adults
Medicare support, cost-saving programmes, and the scams that target seniors first.
Read the full help for older adults guideProtecting older adults: free Medicare help and how to spot a scam
Free, unbiased Medicare counselling through your state SHIP, help paying premiums and drug costs, and the scam patterns that target older adults most — plus exactly where to report them.
Care without stable housing
Getting enrolled, seen and reachable when you have no fixed address.
Read the full care without stable housing guideGetting health care without a home address
You do not need a permanent address, an ID, or insurance to get care. Health Care for the Homeless programs, emergency care rights, Medicaid without a fixed address, and free mental health and substance use help.
This directory was last reviewed
What we check before publishing
- Primary sources only
- Every rule, deadline and dollar threshold is traced back to HealthCare.gov, Medicare.gov, CMS, Medicaid.gov, the IRS or a state insurance department — never to another blog.
- Plan-year accuracy
- Figures that change annually (income bands, out-of-pocket caps, enrollment dates) are re-verified before each Open Enrollment period and re-dated when a rule changes.
- No price or availability claims
- We never publish live premiums, plan counts or carrier availability. Those depend on your ZIP code, age, household and income, and are confirmed by a licensed producer or the official Marketplace.
- Neutral routing
- Coverage routes are ordered by eligibility, not by what pays us. Referral fees never change the premium you are quoted.
- Plain-language review
- Each page is read back for readability and for anything that could be mistaken for medical, tax or legal advice, which we do not give.
Spotted something out of date? See our full editorial policy — we re-date pages whenever a federal or state rule changes.
If you need help right now
- Emergency: call 911. Emergency departments must screen and stabilise you regardless of ability to pay.
- Mental health crisis: call or text 988 for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, free and 24 hours.
- Local services: dial 211 for free referrals to health, food and housing support.
- Medicare questions or fraud: call 1-800-MEDICARE, free and 24 hours.
HealthQuotes AI is not a government agency, a medical provider or a crisis service. We point you to official, free resources and never charge for access to them.
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