The health insurance advertising battle has begun, ABC News reports. The insurance industry is now on the air in multiple states attacking Democratic health reform proposals as bad for seniors, according to an independent ad tracker.

The industry has largely refrained from attacking health care legislation until now, and the fact that it has begun to spend money on negative ads is important because the industry helped to bring down health care legislation 15 years ago with its television advertising campaign - known as the iconic Harry and Louise ads.

The industry said on Monday that based on a PriceWaterhouseCoopers analysis of the Senate Finance Committee bill, health care insurance premiums will go up sharply instead of down. The White House and Senate Finance Committee have attacked the report as being flawed.

This week's insurance industry's ads don't focus on the premiums but rather target a politically potent voting block - seniors. Over the years, AHIP has built a network of senior citizen activists called the Coalition for Medicare Choices. AHIP sources say that coalition has a list of 1 million seniors that it can ask to call on Congress not to cut their Medicare benefits.