be worse
Examples
No matter how bad things are, they can always be worse. So what if my stroke left me with a speech impediment? Moses had one, and he did all right.
War is, at first, the hope that one will be better off next, the expectation that the other fellow will be worse off then, the satisfaction that he isn't any better off and, finally, the surprise at everyone's being worse off.
No possible future government in Kabul can be worse than the Taliban, and no thinkable future government would allow the level of Al Qaeda gangsterism to recur. So the outcome is proportionate and congruent with international principles of self-defense.
If hunger forces a farmer in a particular year to eat both his yam tubers and the seed-yams, the succeeding years would still be worse because he would have no yams to eat and none to plant.
The remedy may be worse than the disease.
The cure may be worse than the disease.