The soft, feel-good commercial is unlikely to have the same resonance as the industry’s Harry and Louise spots, where a fictional couple’s kitchen-table gripes about a government-run health system helped doom reform 15 years ago. And that, it seems, is by design.

The 30-second spot pushes for bipartisan reform that includes providing affordable coverage for all that doesn’t deny insurance to those with pre-existing health conditions. Industry insiders view covering pre-existing conditions as a significant, but needed, concession that, combined with a requirement that individuals own insurance, will ensure that everyone gets affordable coverage.

“Illness doesn’t care where you live or if you’re already sick or if you lose your job. Your health insurance shouldn’t either. So let’s fix health care. If everyone’s covered, we can make health care as affordable as possible. And the words ‘pre-existing condition’ become a thing of the past,” the ad says.

Perhaps more illuminating is what the ads don’t do. They don’t slam the idea of creating a government-run insurance plan, a proposal the industry vehemently opposes. They don’t go negative. And they don’t threaten to undermine reform.

But make no mistake, the ads are sending a strong don’t-tread-on-us message. The ad launch isn’t so much a shot-across the bow of reform as a Soviet-era military parade designed to showcase the industry’s arsenal.

“There’s one thing that this industry knows how to do and that’s to engage, mobilize and lobby,” said an insurance industry lobbyist. “This is an industry that has the capacity to send messages from positive to negative and has no problem doing it.”

The insurers’ television ad, which could also run in targeted markets, will be supported by a complementary print campaign that is also set to launch this week. The industry intends to tap into its national network of 500,000 employees to help spread the message.

The industry enters the ad game as the airwaves have become increasingly crowded with competing messages. Just last week, two liberal groups announced an $800,000, five-day ad campaign that takes a shot at the insurance industry’s profits and urges lawmakers to support a public plan. The ad will air in the districts of at least 10 moderate Democratic lawmakers.

The ads come after a particularly tough week for the industry, and reform generally, on Capitol Hill.
Several members of the Senate Finance Committee blasted insurers for not doing their part to fund health care reform and proposed sticking them with $100 billion in new fees.

Meanwhile, House Democratic leaders struggled with rank-and-file members’ increasing skepticism over the bill’s size and scope. In the Senate, the Finance Committee has yet to introduce a bill, throwing into doubt the chamber’s ability to pass a bill by the August recess.

So with the debate heating up and health care dominating the national stage, it’s no surprise that the industry’s trade group, America’s Health Insurance Plans, choose to wade into the air war now.

“We want to set the record straight and make sure the American people know that we’re doing everything possible and we’re doing our share to get reform done and any suggestion that we haven’t been at the table, that we haven’t made a contribution does not square with the facts,” said AHIP spokesman Michael Tuffin, noting the industry’s openness to market and administrative reforms.

In the ad, the industry didn’t mention its opposition to a public insurance plan, choosing instead to focus on the reforms it does support as “a way to bridge the divide over the government-run plan,” he said.

Another reason to be more circumspect, some insiders say, is because going negative puts the industry at risk of becoming a Democratic foil, giving Democrats busy fighting amongst themselves, and with Republicans, a cause to rally behind.

The ad campaign, said an industry insider, is also a signal from AHIP president Karen Ignagni to the industry’s increasingly agitated right flank that she’s not going to sit back and get played by Democrats - a charge the Wall Street Journal opinion pages have made several times in recent weeks.