The article discusses the current situation in the US, where public health budgets have been slashed and federal agencies are hollowed out, and a workforce is driven from the field. The author points out that this trend, which has seen repeated success in the past, is not unprecedented but a pattern that has seen progress in the U.S. since the Progressive Era saw significant public health advances being dismantled in the 1920s. A study by Jacob Bor and colleagues found that if the U., which had mortality rates comparable to peer nations, over one million deaths in 2021 alone could have been prevented. The costs of underfunding public health are not abstractions, but economic as well as moral. The article suggests that public health advocates must communicate this message to non-believers and non-governmental groups.