56
Opinion of the Court
ers' compensation benefits to injured workers. See Blum, supra, at 1011. Instead, the State's workers' compensation law imposes that obligation on employers. This case is therefore not unlike Jackson, supra, where we noted that "while the Pennsylvania statute imposes an obligation to furnish service on regulated utilities, it imposes no such obligation on the State." Id., at 353; see also San Francisco Arts & Athletics, Inc. v. United States Olympic Comm., 483 U. S. 522, 544 (1987) ("The fact '[t]hat a private entity performs a function which serves the public does not make its acts [governmental] action' ") (quoting Rendell-Baker v. Kohn, 457 U. S. 830, 842 (1982)).11
Nor is there any merit in respondents' argument that the State has delegated to insurers the traditionally exclusive governmental function of deciding whether to suspend payment for disputed medical treatment. Historical practice, as well as the state statutory scheme, does not support respondents' characterization. It is no doubt true that before the 1993 amendments an insurer who sought to withhold payment for disputed medical treatment was required to petition the Bureau, and could withhold payment only upon a favorable ruling by a workers' compensation judge, and then only for prospective treatment.
But before Pennsylvania ever adopted its workers' compensation law, an insurer under contract with an employer to pay for its workers' reasonable and necessary medical expenses could withhold payment, for any reason or no reason, without any authorization or involvement of the State. The
11 The fact that the State has established a Workers' Compensation Security Fund to guarantee the payment of medical benefits in the event an insurer becomes insolvent, see 77 Pa. Stat. Ann. § 1053 (Purdon 1992), does not mean, as respondents suggest, that the State has created a self-imposed obligation to provide benefits. The security fund is financed entirely through assessments on insurers and receives no financial assistance from the State. § 1055; see D. Ballantyne & C. Telles, Workers Compensation Research Institute, Workers' Compensation in Pennsylvania 15 (1991).
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