The ai they use is also not intended to separate those who need care from those who don’t, instead the ai is meant to separate those who would successfully appeal against the decision from those who wouldn’t. This is how the UHC denial rate was able to shoot up so fast: from 10.9% in 2020 to 32% in 2023. There have to be a lot of excess deaths, personal bankruptcies and homelessness hiding behind that statistic.
That system of vector maps is in popular use atleast since the 1970s, so when Google maps started, they could just collect existing gis (geographic information systems) maps. I wasn’t born yet, but I expect that countries/companies started digitizing their old maps in the 1970s and 1980s and that paper prints after that were based on those digital versions. And countries without good maps to start from (too large/remote/administratively weak), probably started their digital mapping projects based on aerial photos. And when Papua New Guinea finally starts with a digital mapping project, they can start straight away from satellite photos :)