If you bought your health insurance without going through one of the exchanges brought into being by the Affordable Care Act, you might want to reconsider before doing it again. You could be leaving government money on the table.

A CBS News report says the Department of Health and Human Services estimates 2.5 million people bought off-exchange health care coverage for 2016, but might actually have income levels that qualify them for tax credits to help pay the premium.

The marketplaces provide customers with income levels up to four times the federal poverty level, or nearly $100,000 for a family of four, with tax credits to assist with covering the premiums. The lower a customer's income level, the greater the financial assist — but the catch is that the customer has to purchase health coverage through the exchanges to get the subsidy.

In particular, according to HHS, California, Texas and Florida, as well as some other states, could have more than 100,000 people who have bought their individual coverage off-exchange — but who may qualify for subsidies to help them with the premiums if they'd gone through the exchanges.

Because of the premium hikes that insurers have asked for in the year to come — well over 10 percent in some markets — people who previously bought individual coverage without the assistance of the tax credit not only paid the full price of the policy at purchase, but could be in line to have to choose between a cheaper plan and a steep increase in premium. The HHS report estimated that could be as many as 6.9 million people.

HHS also pointed out that many people may not have bought coverage through the exchanges simply because they didn't know they might qualify for assistance. More than 9 million people already do receive assistance by going through the exchanges for their coverage.

Enrollment for 2017 begins on November 1, and continues through January of 2017.

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