The Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday passed a bill introduced by Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., that would require the Department of Veterans Affairs to provide mental health and behavioral services to former service members who served in combat and who received other-than-honorable discharges.

Murphy's Honor Our Commitment Act passed through the committee as part of the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs Appropriations bill for fiscal year 2018.

"We're now another step closer to getting this bill signed into law," Murphy said in a statement after the committee voted favorably on his bill. "The men and women who risk their lives for our country and suffer the wounds of war should never be shut out of the VA system and denied the care they need."

The VA estimates that there are about 500,000 former service members with other-than-honorable discharges. This kind of discharge usually makes service members ineligible for most benefits provided by the VA, which recently began offering urgent mental health care for up to 90 days to former service members with other-than-honorable discharges. Murphy has said the new VA initiative doesn't go far enough.