this is the worst example you could choose.
medicine in the US isn't private (as in unregulated free market) at all, especially not research. even the actual services are run by HMOs (so-called "private" insurance), and only for non-military, non-poor, non-public-sector-worker, adult-but-not-retired, and by (state) governments for everyone else.
Yeah, I know. I was more thinking in a historical sense. That is why I pointed out that the situation has changed now.
...and that's very speculative. what would the behaviour of human beings be.
But then, how can you compare? If the government is taking the money, the government is the one producing the investigation. But how can you claim that if left with the money the private sector would not have done better? Its a long and interesting discussion. But the point that its important to keep in mind is that the results of what we see now is not because the private sector can not investigate long term. Its the result of the government taking the resources needed to investigate from the private sector and using them. Pointing out that some discoveries were done by the government proves nothing.