By John Dodge

CHICAGO (CBS) — Declaring a victory for his health care reform plan, the New Yorker’s latest cover shows President Obama spoon-feeding GOP leaders their medicine.

Obama is dressed in a white doctor’s coat in an exam room, giving Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell some liquid medication, the kind typically reserved for children.

“This whole enterprise was just an elaborate excuse,” Barry Blitt said on the New Yorker website about his cover for this week’s issue. “I enjoyed drawing Ted Cruz, John Boehner, and Michele Bachmann as petulant children—and I especially wanted to draw an open-mouthed Mitch McConnell being spoon-fed his meds.”

The Obama administration declared a milestone victory after about seven million Americans signed up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act. However, the program got off to a horrendous start last fall when the federal Obamacare website crashed and took weeks to fix.

In Illinois, more than 333,000 residents have signed up for health coverage and about a third of those have actually purchased insurance.

Republicans have consistently campaigned against the law, making dozens of attempts to repeal it since it was signed in 2010.

Commentary on Twitter was fast, funny and predictable.

Perhaps the cartoon didn’t go far enough.

@gdebenedetti Such restraint…going with "open wide" instead of "bend over." — xpostfactoid (@xpostfactoid1) April 7, 2014

Bachmann’s press operation quickly spun the story around.

Bachmann Fires Back at New Yorker Cover: They 'Parrot the Administration's Obamacare Talking Points' | Truth Revolt: http://t.co/Rmh2Js35K9 — Truth Revolt (@TruthRevoltOrg) April 7, 2014

“If anybody is an expert in spoon-feeding, it is the liberal media and their disposition to parrot the Administration’s Obamacare talking points and unconfirmed enrollment numbers,” said Dan Kotman, spokesman for Bachmann. “With an ounce of curiosity, they would quickly find that Obamacare is causing premiums to skyrocket and patients to lose their plans and doctors—exactly the opposite of what President Obama promised.”

An unnamed senior GOP congressional aide told TruthRevolt that the cartoon is a “perfect illustration” of the condescending attitude displayed so often by liberals.

“The joke is really on them. The clear goal here was to mock conservatives, but what they’ve given us instead is a perfect illustration of liberal paternalism.”