Balmori Software Inc.

[ Article ]

The Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) of RA 11223, known as the Universal Health Care Act, have just been released. Find the complete text here:

https://lawphil.net/statutes/repacts/ra2019/ra_11223_2019.html

RA 1223 marks a major change. It represents a revolutionary attitude towards health care, one that makes the Philippines as forward-thinking as the UK, Canada, and Cuba. And more forward-thinking than the USA - what with its current ambivalence towards a single-payer health care system.

This progress comes at a cost: premium contributions go up for practically everybody, especially the middle class salaried person. And yes, it also increases the potential for graft and corruption.

And inevitably, the Universal Health Care Act obliges the payroll software industry to make yet another revision to all payroll apps serving the Philippine market.

RA 1223 completely discards the traditional lookup table for determining contribution premiums. Replacing the lookup table's step-function structure is a straightforward percentage of basic pay, but with a prescribed minimum and maximum. (Go to page 13 of the IRR.) But also, these two parameters - the percentage premium and the maximum income basis - rise every year from December 2019 until 2025.

The new contribution computation method, with the starting percentage premium rate (2.75% of basic pay) takes effect in December 2019. Just one month later, in January 2020, a higher contribution rate (at 3% of basic pay) kicks in, as does a new, higher income ceiling. And every January thereafter until 2025, both the premium rate and the income ceiling will creep up.

In response to this IRR, Balmori Software has revised the algorithms of SURE! PayMaster and all its variants to comply with the new contribution structure. This has resulted in a new version, Version 7.10.2. The main changes to be found in Ver. 7.10.2 are the following:

1. We removed the current lookup table, as it is no longer applicable, and replaced it with a new algorithm to implement the new percentage-based contribution regime.

2. The new algorithm raises the percentage contribution every year between December 2019 up to 2025, as the IRR specifies. SURE! PayMaster Ver. 7.10.2 then automatically implements all the programmed annual premium rate increases - and income ceiling increases - until 2025. Every January of every new year until 2025, SURE! PayMaster Ver. 7.10.2 will automatically apply the appropriate percentage for that year as specified in the IRR.

Item no. 2 above means that SURE! PayMaster users who upgrade to Ver. 7.10.2 are fully taken care of until 2025, provided Philhealth imposes no fresh changes during that period. And what happens after 2025? Our lawmakers are loath to commit that far into the future, and so in turn our algorithms can go no further.

3. Ver. 7.10.2 also offers an optional feature that is not imposed by RA 1223, but which current users will find very desirable. SURE! PayMaster now has an optional capability to email payslips directly to employees.

Therefore, starting December 2019, Philhealth premium computations from all current payroll applications on the market will be obsolete. And it doesn't matter who your software supplier is; all payroll apps from all vendors are equally affected.

In other words, unless you upgrade your current payroll software, or you resign yourself to computing Philhealth premiums manually, your remittances to Philhealth will be quite a few pesos short.

Call us to upgrade your current SURE! PayMaster license.





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