Ellie, you can also qualify for Assurance if you just have a low income. You don't necessarily have to have food stamps or Medicaid.

Assurance isn't too bad. It's through Virgin Mobile USA. The only bad thing about it is that VM's customer service SUCKS. They can be very rude and unhelpful sometimes. But other than that, their phone is pretty decent. My mom had one until they randomly cut her service off.