Senate Republicans have successfully identified two minor violations of reconciliation rules in the final piece of the health-care package. The violations will force the Senate to change the reconciliation bill and ship it to the House of Representatives for final passage.

Below is a list of Republican amendments that have been — or will be by the time most of you read this — defeated by the Democrats in the Senate during the late-night “vote-o-rama” undertaken to close debate on the reconciliation bill. (Senatus has a nice, short summary of each here.)

–Senator Gregg: Protect Medicare Savings
–Senator McCain: Remove Sweetheart Deals
–Senator Crapo: No Tax Hikes for Families Earning Under $250,000
–Senator Enzi: Strike the Employer Mandate
–Senator Barrasso: Requires Legislation Not Increase Premiums
–Senator Grassley: Requires President, Congress Enroll in Exchange
–Senator Alexander: Reduce Student Loan Interest Rate
–Senator LeMieux: Members On Medicaid
–Senator Coburn: Bars Sex Offenders from Receiving E.D. Drugs
–Senator Hutchison: State Opt Out
–Senator Hatch: Block Medicare Advantage Cuts
–Senator Collins: Waive Employer Mandate Tax
–Senator Thune: Strike CLASS Act
–Senator Cornyn: Remove New Taxes on Investments
–Senator Hatch: Protect Wounded Soldiers from Medical Device Tax
–Senator Inhofe: Protect Pediatrics and Disabled from Medical Device Tax
–Senator Crapo: Protect Cancer Patients from Medical Device Tax
–Senators Roberts, Inhofe, Brown, Crapo: Strike Medical Device Tax
–Senator Burr: Tricare and Veterans Health Programs
–Senator Roberts: Rationing
–Senator Roberts: Critical Access Hospitals
–Senator Vitter: Repeals Democrats’ Health Care Bill

Now, our friends on the Left will say this is time-wasting gamesmanship, and they’re mostly right. The Democrats have displayed of late a level of discipline unseen in years. The Republican amendments stand absolutely no chance of stopping this forced march toward passage of the reconciliation measure.

But for every Coburn Amendment (no sex pills for pervs, bless the senator’s heart), designed as much to embarrass Democrats as address an issue, there are a half-dozen amendments aimed at striking down the most noxious parts of the bill and, perhaps more relevantly, asking Democrats to go on record to keep their promises.

The Burr amendment would guarantee that our soldiers’ and veterans’ health-plans are protected under Obamacare (it is an open question whether they in fact are). The Inhofe amendment would strike unfair and innovation-killing taxes on medical devices for children and the disabled. The Collins amendment would strike a job-killing tax on businesses that hire unemployed workers. The Hutchinson amendment would allow states to opt out of most of the bill’s odious provisions.

A number of amendments would “recommit” the bill to committee or otherwise make its passage contingent on guarantees that it will not raise premiums, or raise taxes on the middle class, or cut Medicare (which, while a massive unfunded liability that needs to be radically redesigned, is also a promise we’ve already made to our seniors — ask Paul Ryan).

The Vitter amendment — tabled 58–39 — would have repealed Obamacare.

These are important amendments, and this process is a dress rehearsal for what repeal — if it comes — will likely end up looking like. Senator Cornyn took a beating (in my inbox at least) for telling the HuffPo that Republicans likely won’t (or can’t) repeal the bill tout court. And while I think the goal should be to do just that, the more realistic scenario is a step by step dismantling of the worst parts of the bill and a replacement of others (yes, like the preexisting-conditions ban) with more free market- and taxpayer-friendly alternatives.

So while this wee-hour vote-a-rama is as much a dog-and-pony show as anything else, pay attention. It is a debate we will have again in 2011 or 2013, and by then, the outcome could be much different.

UPDATE: I say below that the GOP amendments didn’t have any chance of passing. But Senate Republicans did succeed in having the parliamentarian throw out two provisions of the student loan tack-on on technical grounds, forcing the bill back to the House for a final vote.