Abstract: In the context of“poverty caused by diseases”becoming the main reason for the poverty of poor rural residents, based on the data of China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) 2015, this paper employs benchmark model, PSM model and 2RIS model to conduct a systematic investigation of the poverty reducing effect of rural residents medical insurance from the following four aspects: the basic medical insurance, the multiple medical security, different levels of payment and the mechanism of reducing poverty by insurance. The results show that the outpatients section of NCMS cannot reduce poverty. The inpatients section of NCMS can significantly reduce the poverty occurrence rate by 5~7%, because the insurance can reduce inpatient’s own expense by 57% and reduce the occurrence rate of catastrophic medical expenses by 11%. When the reimbursement rate of hospitalization expenses increases by 5%, the poverty rate of rural population can be reduced by 7.7%. Although the multiple medical security has poverty alleviation effect, the result is not stable. These indicate that the focuses of the future health poverty-alleviation project would be to reform the outpatient section of NCMS, consolidate the inpatient section of NCMS and broaden the multiple medical security coverage, for the sake of promoting the realization of the poverty alleviation function of insurance.

Key words: medical insurance; multiple medical security; health poverty alleviation; rural poor population; PSM model